


The doors of death - Gray and Mel's random Fanfiction

by AlinasTeaParty



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10075187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlinasTeaParty/pseuds/AlinasTeaParty
Summary: Emma wanted to read this trash??? It's so bad??? 7/10 would not reccomend





	1. The under world, Above the world, and out of this World

Keily and I were sitting in a Café in Miami pouring over a large map and a few pages of notes that Annabeth had ‘provided’ she doesn’t know about it yet... On the map of Florida I used a few coloured markers to show where the different parts of the underworld are.

“So under the Hollywood sign is the top of the river Styx,” I say drawing a blue squiggly line.

“Right, and the Isles of the blessed are…?” she asks giving me a frustrated look.

“What’s wrong?” I ask rolling my eyes.

“You made me shadow travel Mave! Children of the  _sun god_  don’t do well in shadows!” she says and I shush her.

“I’m sorry but we needed to get here before the doors of death closed and before…” I trail off and she sighs.

“And before your chance to get Luke out is gone,” she finishes I pick up a green marker and Draw a big wobbly shape.

“The Isles are here,” I say and she nods, “Almost under our feet,” I say and draw a blue star next to it, “and this is us,” I say.

“And the Fields of Asphodel are…?” she asks and I pick up a black marker and draw a long skinny shape running parallel to the river.

“Here,” I say picking up a red marker and drawing a very large circle near Jacksonville creating the top point of a long line of coloured blobs with a circle left blank, “and the red bit is Tartarus,” I say and she nods.

“What’s that blank bit?” she points to the small area underneath Kissimmee.

“Hades’ castle,” I say, longing pulling at me lightly. I use my pencil to mark it.

“Do you miss it there?” she asks a little and I nod once.

“You’re about to see it,” I say and she nods.

“I know,” she says and I look at her with slight concern.

“You don’t have to come, if you don’t want,” I say and she sighs.

“I really, really don’t want to,” she replies and I nod.

“It’s not like he’ll try to kill me, I’m his daughter after all,” I say with a smile, “Do you want me to take you back to the Argo II?” I ask and her eyes light up.

“Yes please!” she says with excitement and I laugh. She’d been crushing on Leo since we met him.

“Ok, come on,” I say packing up the map and notes, putting it in my black satchel. We walk out of the café and into a side alley as if to put something into a bin, but instead I grab Keily’s hand and we run towards a wall that was cloaked in shadow. The next thing she knew was that she was standing on the Argo II next to Leo. He jumped when he saw us then sighed.

“Man, you guys gotta knock or clear your throats or something when you do that!” he exclaims and I smile.

“Ok Mr Repair Boy, we’ll keep that in mind, but I gotta go,” I say and I leave through the shadow again, Nico, my older brother, would have been drained from it but it seemed I was better at it than he is. I came out of the shadow in the middle of Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park,  _a clever spot to put your castle dad,_ I think to myself before walking to one of the rocks that had six dents in it, like the kind toddlers get when they press their hand into Playdough I put my hand in it, “Άδη, ανοίξτε τις πόρτες σας για μένα” (Ádi̱ , anoíxte tis pórtes sas gia ména- Hades open your doors for me) then the rock opens and I walk inside and find myself in an elevator with black mirrors and black carpet that had faces embroidered into it, and the mirrors looked like there were ghosts passing behind it, watching me and I realise there probably are. The doors open and I’m greeted by a massive hound.

“Hey Marsie,” I say scratching behind the Hellhounds ear. She gives the dog version of a grin and we walk towards the big doors of dad’s castle. I open the doors and see Persephone walking through the main hall.

“Mavis! What are you doing here sweetheart?” she asks kindly.

“Hey Persephone, I need to talk to Dad,” I say with a smile, she walks over to me and frowns at what I’m wearing, black ripped jeans, a dark purple My Chemical Romance shirt, and my hoodie hung over my bag. Soon a few green vines envelope me and then pull away, I look down and see a green and black ankle length dress and I put a hand to my Black and blue hair, she’s made it grow out and put into an intricate bun I look at her as if to say ‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ “Ok, you’ve dressed me up, can I have my clothes back, I can’t run in this thing,” I say and she sighs and the vines reach out and my clothes are back but the bun is still there.

“You didn’t say anything about your hair,” she says and she turns around.

“Your father is this way,” she says and I sigh, I know where he is, I just needed to get to him, and I sure didn’t need her to be snobby about it.

“Thank you,” I say as kindly as I can.

“Persephone, why are you disrupting me?” Hades called from his throne/ relaxation room as soon as she stepped through the open doors.

“Mavis is here to speak to you,” she says before leaving. I could feel the mood in the room lightening. It was good being the favourite child.

“Hey Mave!” He exclaims and walks over to me.

“Hey dad,” I say with a wide smile as he hugged me, most people don’t like him, but I do.

“What are you doing here?” he asks and my smile fades just a little, this could possibly be difficult.

“Um, you know how you said, when you claimed me, that I would get one large favour from you?” I ask and he nods once and I continue “Well I need to cash that in now,” I say and he sighs.

“Anything you need, tell me,” he says and I take a deep breath.

“I need Luke Castellan back, I need him up there,” I say pointing towards the roof, and the world above.

“Mave…” he says and I look up at him with big eyes.

“Please,” I beg and he sighs.

“If you can find him, and get him out, I won’t have Thanatos bring him back, and he won’t remember anything from his time down here,” he says and I hug him tightly.

“Thank you so much,” I say and he laughs.

“Start in Tartarus, I can honestly say I have no idea where he is, but I hope you find him,” he says and the floor beneath me opens and I fall into some tunnel that had a strong wind going through it and it pushed me all the way to Jacksonville. When I finally stopped I was standing and my head was spinning.

“Hi ground,” I say as I fall backwards and I hear two voices laughing. When my head wasn’t spinning so badly I look over and see Percy and Annabeth sitting against a wall.

“Hey guys,” I say sitting up.

“Hey Mavis,” Annabeth says, while Percy is still recovering from his hysterics.

“Any luck so far?” I ask and she shakes her head. Then we hear a loud, sickening crunch and Percy bursts into laughter again. I turn around and see Keily lying in a large dent that was caused by a fall, I look up and see the roof above us closing up, “Kee, what are you doing here?” I ask her as she sits up holding her head.

“Ask that damned brother of yours!” she says angrily and I hold back a laugh.

“About the Enchilada’s?” I ask and she nods. I hold back a laugh and hold my hand out to her and she takes it. When she’s standing she glares at Percy who is still laughing.

“So why are you in Tartarus? I thought he’d be in the Isles or something,” she asks and Annabeth and Percy look at me in confusion.

“Who?” Annabeth asks and I sigh turning to them again.

“Luke,” I say and Percy rolls his eyes. “What?” I demand, and he stands up and I notice there’s blood on his shirt, and Annabeth's.

“Just we all knew you like him, but we never thought you’d try and find him,” he said and I scowl at him and look away to hide my blush.

“I don’t like him,” I say embarrassed.

“Sure, sure,” Keily said in a sarcastic tone.

“Like him or no, you’re in the wrong spot, he’s in the Isles,” Annabeth said and I sigh.

“Back to Miami I go,” I mutter.

“Why did you think he’d be down here?” Percy asked with half a smile.

“Well two things, one: Dad sent me down here to start looking, because he had no idea where he is, and Two: Part of me was thinking, ‘well he did try to destroy the world, so maybe,’” I say and Annabeth looks defensive.

“That’s not his fault! Kronos did that!” she said her eyes blazing.

“I know that Annabeth! But I just didn’t know how the judges would see him!” I say angrily. She takes a step back at my voice, I have never been loud around her.

“Hey, both of you settle down!” Keily says, and I take a deep breath, “Ok, now Mave, why don’t you take me back to the Argo II seeing as your brother dropped me down here?” she asks and I nod putting a hand on her shoulder and I get us out of there. We end up near Jason and Piper and I get away before they see me. I find myself near a big golden archway that will lead me into the Isles, but the guards are there looking happy but frightening decked out in their battered Greek armour.

“Who goes there?” the larger of the two asks in a deep voice that rattled me to my bones.

“Mavis Takashi Stray, Daughter of Hades,” I say firmly, stepping out of the shadow.

“What business do you have here?” the other one asks, a female, I hadn’t noticed.

“I need to speak to one of the spirits here,” I say and they both stand up straighter.

“Which spirit and are they expecting you?” the bigger one asks.

“Charles Beckendorf,” I say, blurting out the first name that I could think of that wasn’t Luke’s if I said Luke’s name, they’d check on him later and would find that he was gone, “no he’s not expecting me,” I add and they shake their heads.

“Sorry, if they are not expecting you I cannot verify that it is ok for you to enter,” the smaller one answers in a very soft voice, which somehow frightened me more than the others bone-rattling voice. I put on a fake smile and nod.

“I understand, thank you for your time,” I say and I turn and walk away, but the smaller one calls after me.

“Takashi is a boy’s name isn’t it?” she asks with a hint of laughter.

“It is, it means worthy of praise, but my mother had just heard it somewhere and liked it,” I say before ducking into a shadow. I come out into the shadow of a large tree I couldn’t Identify.

“Ok so the direct plan didn’t work, it’s time to be a little sneakier,” I mutter to myself and look around to make sure no one else was at the campground, it’s not camping season but better to be safe than sorry. When I’m sure nobody else is around I take a deep breath and steady myself, getting ready to use a power I have only ever used once by accident, Nico can do it no sweat but it drains the hell out of me. I take another deep breath and push down, I feel the earth break under my feet and I fall through, I would have shadow travelled in but the last time I tried to do that, to try and find someone who could answer my questions, I had found myself in front of Dad, for some reason there is a force field around the Isles and if you try to go in through shadows, it throws you into the castle. Who’d have known? “Ow, ow, ow, fuckidy ow!” I exclaim looking at the mending earth above my head.

“Hurt did it?” I hear a familiar voice I look up from my spot on the ground and see Beckendorf and Silena looking down at me.

“Just a little,” I say with a smile holding up two fingers indicating an inch.

“Come on, get up,” he says offering his hand to me, I take it and he pulls me up.

“Thanks,” I say and I look at the dent I made in the grass that is fixing itself.

“No worries, so, you’re looking for Luke right?” he asks and I look at him in shock.

“How did you know?” I ask and he smirks.

“We’ve had constant contact with Percy and Annabeth since they arrived in the underworld,” Silena fills me in.

“Wow, some daughter of Hades I am, I didn’t know that was possible,” I say and they laugh.

“It’s like and Iris message, but the underworld equivalent and constant inside our heads,” Charlie adds and that makes it clearer.

“Right, thanks but yeah, I’m looking for Luke, you guys know where he is?” I ask and Charlie smirks, here we go, he has a line-up of jokes ready.

“Yeah, he’s having a diet soda at the male strip bar on the other side of the Isles,” he says and I give him a tired look.

“Very funny, where is he?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“Ok, sorry I lied, he’s at the cemetery being a male prostitute,” he adds and Silena hits him in the chest with the back of her hand lightly.

“Charlie stop it,” she says and he grins kissing her on the top of the head.

“Ok, sorry, he’s at the mall stealing everything in sight,” he says and Silena gives him a look still thinking he’s joking.

“That I can believe,” I say and she looks at me like I’m mad.

“I don’t know why he bothers being sneaky, everything is free anyways,” Charlie adds and I nod. I’d only met them once before but I knew they were awesome people, and now, trustworthy so I believed him.

“I know, well I got to run then…” I say starting to walk backwards while I say bye, “Oh yeah Beckendorf?” I say and he looks confused all of a sudden, maybe my voice had changed.

“Yeah?” he asks “Another kid is using your bed,” I say briefly and enjoying the look of annoyance that crosses his face.

“Ok bye,” Silena urges and I grin, taking off running towards the department store that I saw to the right of me. When I get to the doors I run into someone I’d met during the Battle for Manhattan, I’d only experienced two minutes of it as Keily and I were chased into Manhattan through the shadows by some monster, but this boy with the glossy black hair, slim build and an eye patch saved our lives.

“Ethan!” I exclaim and he smiles.

“Arrowless,” he replies referring to when he’d met me and I had, had an empty quiver.

“So you got in here,” I say and he looks around, putting his hand into his pockets.

“So did you by the looks of it, when did you die?” he asks and I smile.

“I didn’t I’m visiting, being the child of Hades has its perks,” I say with a smile.

“Oh,” he says he looks a little down though, and I realise, if I didn’t like Luke so much, I’d rescue Ethan instead.

“Are you alright?” I ask and he smiles.

“Yeah, I am, it’s great you aren’t dead,” he says and I smile.

“I guess it is, um, I have to get going, but I’ll come back and visit soon, ok?” I ask and he nods.

“See you then Arrowless,” he says, reaching out and ruffling my hair.

“See you then,” I promise then add “I never really thanked you for saving Keily and I,” he reaches out a closed hand and I return the knuckle bump.

“No problem,” he says and I grin. Then he looks over at someone who’d called his name and walks over to them, and I take off running again. I knew where Luke would be. I run into the EB games store on the third floor. Luke is standing at a game testing area and I walk up to him.

“Hey,” I say casually, he pauses the game he’s playing and he looks at me, confusion hitting him for a moment before recognising me.

“Hey you’re the girl who arrived at camp on the same day as Jackson was discovered right, a year before he showed up? Um, Mavis right?” he asks jokingly and I nod, a smile spreading across my face, he’d only been my best friend, yeah I’m that girl.

“That’s me,” I say lightly.

“So you died?” he asks sympathetically and I shake my head.

“Nope, still living,” I say showing my strong pulse in my wrist.

“So what are you doing here?” he asks leaning on the bench.  _Gods, I didn’t think it’d be this hard to concentrate!_ I think to myself quickly looking at what he’s wearing, a black t-shirt and jeans, a completely normal thing for him to wear but it just made him look so, so, well for the lack of a better word, hot.

“Getting you out,” I say with a smile, he looks shocked.

“Me, out of here? But I’m in the middle of a Bratz game,” he complains and I look at the screen properly and sure enough he’s playing Bratz slumber party.

“Wow, having Kronos in your head fried it a little, didn’t it?” I ask but before I can continue a hole is ripped in the roof and Keily falls through. I look down at her as she lies dazed on the floor then I look back at Luke. “Come on! Please?” I beg and his expression wavers for a moment.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine here,” Keily says.

“I know,” I reply with a laugh as she gets up, her foot catches a power cord for the television Luke was using and all power was lost, along with the game memory.

“Look what you did!” he exclaims and I sigh.

“Luke, they have Bratz games up there,” I say and he smiles, “Do you still like Call of Duty?” I ask and he nods, “well there is a Black ops 2 now!” I say and he smiles.

“Ok, let’s go,” he says and Keily finally steadies herself.

“Oh Joy,” she says and I scowl at her.

“Come on,” I say taking Luke’s hand and pulling him out of the store and down an escalator to the bottom floor.

“Where are we going?” he asks me and I look at him, and enjoy the feeling of his hand wrapped around mine.

“You’ll see, Keily, you keeping up alright?” I ask and I see her Jogging next to Luke.

“Just fine thanks,” she says sarcastically.

“Good!” I say and ignore the many spirits that are looking at us. Finally we get to the door and I pull them over to a wall, I look around and push them into it, they disappear and I follow them in. We find ourselves in a tunnel and I sigh.

“Luke, stay here, ok? I’ll be right back,” I say grabbing Keily’s hand and shadow traveling to a spot near the end of the tunnel.

“Is he ok?” she asks when we get there and I shake my head.

“No but I’m hoping the missing brain cells will return when we get back to the land of the living,” I say before going back to Luke.

“Hey again,” he says and I smile taking his hand again, and I take him back to Keily. We walk to the end of the tunnel and find ourselves near another EB games store.

“Welcome to the modern world,” I say and Luke cracks a smile.

“That sounds familiar” I laugh and grin.

“Ok you two wait here, I’ll be back in a minute with Nico, I won’t be able to get you both there a once without him, Keily, make sure he doesn’t wander off,” I say and as an afterthought I add “and no stealing things, ok?” I say and they both nod.  _Liars_ I think _._  I go back to the Argo II and land right next to Nico, who is listening to music and looking over the side of the ship, I put a hand on his shoulder and take him down to Tartarus where Percy and Annabeth are still sitting, resting up.

“Nico, we gotta take these guys back to the ship, I need them to give advice about Luke,” I murmur to him and he nods.

“But you’re taking Annabeth, that chick scares the crap out of me,” he says and then we ambush them, ducking out of the shadows and taking them back to the ship before they could argue.

“Hey!” Annabeth says when we are back on the ship.

“Is for horses, what else is new?” I reply coldly.

“We need to be back there!” Percy exclaims “Oh, hi Nico,” he adds.

“And we’ll take you back later, but we need you to be here, to explain about Luke while we go back and get he and Keily,” I say and then he grunts and nods. I take Nico’s hand and I step back into the shadow.

“…and that one, and that one, oh, and that one!” we hear Keily’s hushed voice, “Oh hey Mavis!” she exclaims when she notices me standing next to a very unamused looking Nico.

“Hey Kee,” I say and Luke smiles cheesily. “Nico, grab her hand, or her ear,” I say taking Nico’s hand and then taking Luke’s.

“On the count of three?” he asks and I nod.

“One, two, three,” I say and we shadow travel together to the ship. At some point during the travel Nico let go and we ended up on separate sides of the ship, Keily sitting on the ground holding her head. But I had other things to worry about, Hazel and Jason were pointing swords at our throats, Frank and Piper holding spears, and Coach Hedge had his club ready to swing at Luke’s head. Annabeth was standing away from everybody else, not looking at us, but Percy was standing with his arms crossed, looking at Luke in distaste.

“Percy! What the hell is this?” I ask and I look at Leo who’s standing at the wheel of the ship.

“You’re bringing him on board, I wanted to be prepared,” he replies and I sigh.

“He’s not going to do anything! He’s unarmed and has been dead for two years!” I yell. And then I put a finger on the blade of Frank’s spear which was pointed directly at my throat. “Put it away Frank, someone will get hurt,” I add and he looks at Percy who sighs and nods.

“Sure he’s not going to do anything?” Frank asks and I roll my eyes.

“I swear on the river Styx,” I say and everybody lowers their weapons.

“We need to vote,” Annabeth says, turning around, “vote on whether he stays,” she says pointing at the ship, “Or whether he goes,” she adds pointing over the side, I look at Luke and he looks sad.

“Annabeth,” he says as if mourning a lost friend. He didn’t recognise the Annabeth that was standing in front of him, the Annabeth he knew would never consider throwing him over the edge.

“She’s right,” I agree and he looks at me in shock, “don’t worry,” I say to him and he nods.

“Leo?” I ask and he walks over to us.

“Man, I don’t know you but your scar is sick!” he says with a wide grin.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, “Frank?” I ask quietly.

“Well let me describe my feelings about this,” oh crap, Percy explained. Faster than I would have thought possible frank changed into a large, red dragon and put his teeth on either side of Luke’s head before changing back into himself.

“That’s a solid no,” I add, and I move on, “Hazel? Come on Big sis, pull through for me,” I beg and she looks torn.

“He seems to be a very dangerous boy, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be obsessing over him,” she says and I glare at her. “But the fact that he is dangerous… It could mean you stay safe longer, so I’m going to say yes,” I sigh and look at Piper, “Pipes?” I ask.

“Well it... It doesn’t seem like Jason Likes him all that much…” she trails off and I put my hands on the back of my head so I wouldn’t hit her.

“Pipes! I want you know what  _you_ think, I’ll get to Jason,” I say and she bites her lip.

“Well then I guess I’ll say no,” she says and I sigh.

“It’s a yes from me, man,” Jason says and everybody on the ship stares at him in confusion.

“Nico?” I ask, almost begging. He looked at me and frowned, he looked like he was about to pass out and I guess because of that he didn’t see me, he saw his other sister, he said when he first met me that I looked a little like his sister Bianca.

“I…” he was struggling to look past the time that he had to create a wall to stop Luke… Kronos, getting to them, “Yes, he should stay,” he says and he sits down, starting to fall asleep.

“Percy?” I ask and he frowns, like Nico had.

“Why should I let him stay?” he asks and I sigh, asshole. I open my satchel and pull out a bottle of blue Fanta.

“I have four crates of this at camp,” I say and his eyes gleam. He walks forward and goes to grab the bottle but I pull it out of his reach and hang it over the side of the ship, “Nuh-uh, if you want the Fanta, Luke has to stay,” I say and he sighs and nods.

“Fine,” he says and I hand him the bottle.

“Annabeth is going to kill you, you just gave a hyperactive demigod with ADHD sugar,” Luke murmurs to me.

“No she won’t, she wants you around as much as I do, so Coach?” I ask the Satyr that seems to be angrier than before.

“Well, I’d rather use his head as a baseball, clear enough?” he asks and my shoulders sag.

“Annabeth?” I ask and she looks happy, she’d seen that the votes were going our way.

“Yes,” she says without delay, Percy looks at her a little hurt, maybe he thinks that she still has feelings for him. I give her a grateful smile.

“Keily?” I ask and she looks up at me.

“If I say yes will you make your brother stop throwing me around?” she asks and I smile.

“Dude, he’s my older brother, plus, he’s Nico, why would he listen to me?” I ask and Nico smiles smugly.

“True, ok I just want someone to teach me how to fight properly, so yeah, I guess,” she says and I smile.

“So let’s count, Jason, Hazel, Percy, Leo, Annabeth, Keily, Me, and Nico, that’s eight, verses, Piper, Coach, and Frank, that’s three,” I say with a grin and Hazel smiles. Percy walks over to Annabeth.

“Hey, wise girl, did you say yes so that you could leave me for him?” he asks as everyone else goes back to what they were doing before.

“Seaweed brain,” she says shaking her head.

“You’re lying,” he replied his voice rising.

“Hey, Jackson, it’s cool, I’m not going to go after  _your_  girlfriend,” Luke says meaning that, she’s his girlfriend and he wouldn’t break them up, but that’s not what Percy heard.

“So if she’s gone out with me, she’s not good enough for the mighty Luke Castellan?” he asks angrily and Luke puts his hands up in surrender.

“That’s not what I meant,” Luke said as Percy pulled out riptide. A gust of wind blew over the ship and threw a furry figure at us.

“Grover!” Annabeth says as he gets up rubbing his head.

“Wow, Zeus doesn’t waste anytime…. Look, I brought Enchiladas!” he said then he noticed Luke, and Riptide pointed at him.

“What in Hades is he doing here?” he yells and I look at him with tired eyes.

“I’ll explain later, ok?” I say and he nods running to hide behind coach hedge.

“This is going to sound cheesy,” Percy says, “But I challenge you to a duel!” he adds and Annabeth and I stifle our laughter. I gather myself before Annabeth does and I decide to be the voice of reason.

“Percy, I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea, it’s just a bad idea right now, the guy’s been dead for two years! Midday tomorrow, you’ll have your fight, I promise, just let him get reacquainted with a sword,” I say and Percy glares at me.

“Shut up Mavis! We all know you just want to take him away right now and get acquainted with his sword!” Percy says and my hands ball into fists, Nico stands up, I hadn’t realised he was still awake.

“Uh Percy… I wouldn’t...” he says, Nico’s nose had suffered when he’d made me angry last year.

“Stop protecting your precious Percy, Nico!” I growl at him and he shrugs, “Percy, you’re disgusting, I just don’t want to go trapesing all over the underworld again!” I say and he smiles wickedly. I look up at Luke and he’s watching us like a dangerous tennis match.

“Bet we could hear you squealing from the hallway,” he taunts and I take a step towards him and kick him in the arm that was holding riptide, I hit his elbow and it caused him to recoil and drop the sword which I pick up.

“Seaweed Brain, I wouldn’t say more, seeing as she has Riptide,” Annabeth cautions and I smile and throw Percy the stupid sword.

“You’ve bent the blade Jackson, better get it fixed,” I say and I start to walk away.

“You know, Hades doesn’t actually like you,” Percy jabs, and I turn around, my brown eyes turning black with anger.

“Take it back! Annabeth, make him take it back!” I yell, tears starting to fall from my eyes. She looked like she agreed with him. “Annabeth Bloody Chase! How could you! I thought we were friends!” I say and her face turns red, normally it would scare me but right now, I didn’t give flying skatá. She pulls out her dagger and I get a micro slide thumb drive from my pocket and I slide it open and it changes into my Khopesh. I don’t want to hurt her so I turn my head towards Luke.

“Luke, you want to fight him?” I ask and he looks at me half annoyed, half eager.

“Yeah sure,” he replies and I throw him my sword, he catches it and Percy swings, I’d like to watch more but Annabeth takes a run towards me and I get a pencil out of my inside Jacket pocket and twist the grip and it grows into a long wooden staff with silver engravings. I block one of her blows and then swing one of the ends at her ankles and she tries to dodge the blow but she’s too late and I send her falling backwards but she manages to kick my feet out from underneath me on her way down and she recovers faster than I do, getting to her feet and putting a foot on my arm.

“Give up?” she says with half a smile, but there’s still anger in her eyes.

“Yup, you win… again,” I say and she helps me up. We look over at the guys and they have managed to reconcile in the twenty seconds since the first blow and are cutting an enchilada in half with Percy’s sword I sigh and walk over to them.

“Hi,” they say together around mouthfuls of Enchilada, waving with their swords, I see Percy’s shirt has been cut and the edges of the fabric have blood on them,  _well I hope that hurt as much as what he said to me,_ I think.

“Hey, can I have my sword back?” I ask Luke and he hands it to me, I slide part of the handle and it turns back into a thumb drive. I slide it back in my pocket, then I have a thought and I hit the end of my staff into Percy’s thigh, he topples over backwards and lands on his butt.

“You deserved that,” Annabeth says with a shrug.

“Yeah, I know,” he says and Luke laughs. I touch a carving in the middle of the staff and it turns back into a pencil, “Where did you get those, by the way?” he asks and I smile.

“Having Hades for a dad and Persephone for a step mother has a few Perks,” I say and he nods. “The Staff has a long piece of Stygian Iron up the middle, and they come out into the ends so that if I hit a monster with it hard enough to push the staff through their skin, they will die,” I say and even Nico looks surprised.

“That wasn’t on the list of things I could have,” he said and I smile.

“That’s because it’s my design,” I say and h nods.

“Make sense,” he says and Annabeth looks impressed, which is saying something.

“Suns going down, time to retire!” Coach hedge calls and we all sigh, I notice my exhaustion but then I realise something.

“Hey guys, some of us don’t have a room, namely Keily, Luke, Nico and I,” I say and Leo hits his forehead.

“I knew I forgot someone, you know cause you guys weren’t part of the seven I completely forgot about you, give me an hour ok?” he asks and I nod. He pulls a few little devices from his tool belt and puts them on the ground at his feet and grabs a hammer out and taps each one on the head, they grow into larger robots and stand at attention.

“We need to build more rooms into each of the cabins, Robot one, there needs to be three rooms in the Hades one, Robot two we need to split the spare cabin into two, one for Hermes and one for Apollo. Robot three, you and I are building beds and drawers and other bedroom stuff,” Leo says and they salute and then the four of them leave.

“Well that was… Different,” Luke says and Annabeth, Percy and I all laugh at the ridiculousness of the comment. “What?” he asks with a confused smile.

“That was Leo, he constantly does stuff like that,” Annabeth explains and then I look very at the setting sun. I walk over to the side of the ship and put my forearms on the side so I’m leaning over and I look at the colours in the sky, someone walks up and stands beside me but I don’t pay attention to who it is because I’m too busy thinking about my seventh birthday, the last one I spent at home.

_My mother was in the kitchen finishing up my cake and my stepfather was talking to her over the bench, he had a drink of coke in front of him and was casually taking sips, I always imagined him as just a dark shadow with a face that lingers, but he obviously looked like something else and I was just letting my resentment of him get in the way of reality. Since I have been able write I have written stories, mostly about Greek Mythology, because when I was in kindergarten we had a substitute teacher for a few days, he always wore black shirts, mainly band t-shirts like My Chemical Romance and the like, and black jeans, he had black curly hair and dark eyes, and with his light skin he could almost pass as a ghost. All the other kids said I looked like him, then they’d tease me that I didn’t have a dad, for which the teacher would glare at them for and they’d stop. But most of the days that he taught us, the lessons were mainly on Greek Mythology. But on my birthday I skipped into the kitchen holding a set of four double-sided pages that I had stapled together, it was one of my stories and I had done some drawings to go with it._

_“Mommy, mommy, mommy,” I sang excitedly as I got to her, “I finished my story about Hades! I think it’s really good!” I say, pretty much bouncing._

_“That’s great honey!” she says kneeling down so she was the same height as me, I was a very small child._

_“Eleanor, will you stop encouraging her?” my stepfather growled._

_“It’s just a story, she doesn’t believe in it, I think her stories are good,” My mother replied._

_“Nu-Uh, I_ do  _believe in it,” I say annoyed._

_“It’s not real! And neither is your so called ‘talent’ for writing!” he yelled at me and I shrink back._

_“Adrian,” my mother says, obviously annoyed._

_“No Eleanor!” He yells at her._

_“Thank you,” I say quietly._

_“What?” He asks, suddenly quiet._

_“Thank you for taking away the only thing I could believe in,” I say, and he looks confused._

_“What the Greek Mythology?” my mother asks and I shake my head._

_“Myself,” I say and I run up to my room, closing the door and locking it behind me and grab my small duffel bag. I quickly fill it up with as many clothes as possible. May, the worst month, spring going into summer, luckily today it was raining. When my bag was full I shrug on my jacket and cross my fingers, I’d recently learned that I could run into one shadow and come out another. By accident last month I had found myself on a small island in Greece, I somehow got back home. I walked over to my open window and breathed in the fresh air, I open a small wooden chest and throw one end out the window, I had put two nails under the window sill the week before when I got angry, I secured the two loops in the end of the ladder around them and then I walk to a dark corner of my room and think of my school buddies house, his name was Kaden and he’s in year six, when I open my eyes I find myself on his front porch, I knock on the door and he opens it, his fedora on his head, and I shake my head because the line of music notes on it seemed to be moving._

_“What’s wrong Mave?” he asks kneeling down._

_“They pushed me too far, Adrian, he said Greek Mythology isn’t real, and I have no talent,” I start to cry, he gives me a hug and smiles._

_“I know somewhere you can go,” he says grabbing his jacket from a hook next to the door, putting it on. He closes the door and then takes my hand._

_“Where?” I ask and he points to a house a few blocks down. He goes to walk into the rain but I feel ambitious and pull him into the shadow, he finds himself in the gap between the house he pointed to and the one next to it, he smiles and we walk to the front door and he knocks, a boy a little older than Kaden opens the door, he has a little wisp of facial hair and a funny stripped hat on, he looks down at me and smiles a crazy smile._

_“This the little girl?” he asks and I look at him curiously._

_“This is the one, I there’s a kid in my class I have to convince to come with me today so could you take her to camp on your way to that school to get Jackson?” Kaden asks and I look up at him. “This is Grover, he’s going to look after you, I promise,” he says holding out a pinkie, I take it in mine and we shake our hands._

_“Ok,” I say and Grover holds a hand out to me and I take it, letting go of Kaden's hand._

_“I have to go now,” Kaden says and I wave as he turns to leave._

_“Ok, so I was about to leave, you need to go to the bathroom before we go?” he asks and I shake my head._

_“No thank you,” I say and he smiles, closing the door behind him and we walk under an awning to the garage, I see the car and giggle he looks at me and I duck into the shadows next to me, I find myself sitting in the front passenger seat, Grover starts to laugh as he walks to the car. He gets in the driver’s seat and starts the car._

_“I forgot, Kaden told me you could do that,” he said and then the drive through Manhattan consisted of Grover trying to get me to stop crying and talk, it didn’t work. At about two in the afternoon, he drove onto a little road that I recognised._

_“Farm road!” I exclaim and Grover looks at me in confusion._

_“You know this place?” he asks and I nod I point to a farm in the distance._

_“That’s where my Grandmother lived, I only visited her there once though,” I say and he nods, we pull over next to a road and Grover grabs my bag from the back seat, I get out of the car and look up at the hill, I walk to Grover and he takes my hand and we walk up the hill, where a tall blonde boy is sitting, leaning against a pine tree, appearing to be talking to himself._

_“Grover,” The boy greets, standing up as we approach._

_“Luke,” Grover returns with a smile._

_“Another young one? That’s the second this year,” he says and I look up at Luke, I notice a long scar running through his eye. My first thought of him was, wow._

_“This is Mavis Takashi Stray, she’s… How old are you again?” he asks and I look up at him._

_“I turned seven today,” I say proudly, and Luke laughs at my expression._

_“I would stay with her until she gets settled but I’ve got to go get another one from Yancey Academy, I’m looking forward to that… could you take her to see Chiron, she’ll probably be in your cabin until she’s claimed,” Grover asks and Luke nods I smile and Grover hands me my bag._

_“Will you be ok?” he asks._

_“Well, Kaden trusted you, and you’re pretty cool, and you trust Luke, so I should be alright,” I say and he smiles at me._

_“I think you’re pretty cool too kiddo,” he says ruffling my hair and letting go of my hand, “See you later,” he says and takes off down the hill._

_“Come on then,” Luke says softly._

Someone putting a hand on my shoulder shakes me out of my past and I look at Grover standing on my right, and Luke standing on my left. I suddenly felt like the safest person on the ship.

“Hey Kiddo, are you ok?” Grover asks, taking his hand from my shoulder.

“Yeah, just thinking,” I say and I notice the sun had gone down, “How long was I quiet for?” I ask.

“About half an hour,” Luke says with a smile.  _Wow._  I think again.

“Hey guys! Cabins are done!” Leo calls from the stairs, rubbing some black gooey stuff from his hands with a cloth. I look at Keily who has fallen asleep on the deck, Leo looks at her with a light smile and I walk over to him, Keily owes me big time.

“Crushing on another girl you can’t have?” I ask and he pushes my shoulder.

“That doesn’t happen… often,” he says looking down at her again.

“Dude, it happens all the time, like every time you meet a girl who isn’t into you, you like her,” I say ducking the hand he swings playfully at the back of my head, and I poke my tongue out. I get my staff out and poke Keily with the end, not willing to be closer to her when she wakes up, she jumps up and swings her arm around as if she was holding a sword then she realises where she is and offers me a cheesy grin like an anime character.

“Cabins are done,” Leo says and Keily nods, “They’re arranged by god, like at Camp,” Leo adds and I nod walking towards the stairs. Then I remember I left all my things at camp.

“Crap, ok, anyone need anything from camp?” I call out while walking back up to the deck where everybody had retreated to while Leo was redecorating, “Oh and don’t say Enchiladas, I’m not getting any Enchiladas!” I say and I hear a collective groan from the guys.

“Could you get my hairbrush? It’s on my bed,” Piper asks and I nod, a grin spreading across my face.

“Pipes, your inner girl is showing,” I say and she scowls jokingly.

“I don’t have an inner girl,” she says looking at the floor.

“Percy needs his Fanta, Piper needs her brush, anybody else?” I ask and no one answers. “Ok, I’ll be back in a moment,” I say and I step into the nearest shadow. I open my eyes to see the campfire and everybody singing around it as if a major quest to save the world wasn’t under way, Nyssa noticed me first because she’d turned around to flatten a spider that was behind her. She jumps up and comes over to me.

“Mavis, what are you doing here?” she asks me and I smile.

“Piper left her hairbrush behind and I owe Percy four crates of blue Fanta that I have in my cabin,” I say and she nods. Then Conner and Travis Stoll notice me.

“Mavis is here!” They call in synchronisation. Suddenly at least one hundred eyes were trained on me.

“Hi,” I say and then Chiron walks up to me and I look up at him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks in a forced kind tone and I smile.

“Piper forgot her hairbrush, and I have to get my bag,” I say and some members of the Aphrodite Cabin snicker a little, mainly Drew.

“Ok, you know normally I would send you off right away, it is not usually allowed for members of a quest to come back until after the quest,” he says with narrow eyes and I smile mischievously.

“Ah, but you see, I’m not one of the seven, I’m just tagging along, I am not held by those restrictions,” I say and Conner and Travis laugh and walk over to me, one on either side of me each putting one of their arms around my shoulders and Chiron frowns.

“You’ve been hanging out with these two I think,” he says and I grin, nodding.

“Travis, I’ll have my staff back now,” I say looking at him, with a raised eyebrow and he reluctantly hands it back, “And my thumb drive Connor,” I say and he hands it back, I look at the wide-eyed campers. “What?” I ask and Drew steps forward. “Drew if the explanation is coming from you, I don’t want one,” I say and she looks embarrassed and then Nyssa says.

“Just you’re the only one that’s been able to tell when they’re stealing things since…” she says, Leaving Luke’s name unsaid.

“Yeah I know but when you spend a few years in the same cabin as them, then seven years hanging out with them, you learn a few tricks,” I say, most of the Hermes cabin steered clear of them because they had such sticky fingers, but they were like brothers to me. “Anyway, I’ve got to get back, so I gotta run,” I say and I break away from Connor and Travis. The crowd in front of me parts, most of them Keily’s brothers and sisters, so they generally don’t like me. I walk towards my cabin as the other campers go back to their songs, but I hear two sets of footsteps running after me and soon Conner and Travis were next to me again.

“We know you got him out,” Travis says and I sigh.

“Yeah, and?” I ask, they match my fast pace easily.

“We’d like to see him,” Connor replies and I stop.

“Guys, I don’t know…” I say and they give me big eyes, “just an Iris message,” I say and they grin.

“Cause what they were saying about Luke, it’s true, you and Luke are the only ones who really get us,” Travis says.

“I know,” I say and I start walking again to the door of the Hades Cabin, they hesitate and follow me in.

“Wow,” they say together while looking at the black and green interior, I’d been living here when I could finally bring myself to leave the Hermes cabin, so since last year. I grab my duffel bag, the same one I used when I first came here. Then I walk to the little fountain I’d gotten when I realised how often I used iris message. I pick up a Drachma.

“Hey guys in here,” I say as they come in. I throw the coin in the water, “Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering, show me Luke Castellan aboard the Argo II,” I say and then the rainbow shows and we see Luke.

“Connor! Travis!” he exclaimed, a wide smile causing his eyes to crinkle.

“Luke!” they said and I saw the full extent of their happiness in their eyes.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks then sees me, “You told them, you knew it would hurt them more,” he scolded and I shrank, he looked disappointed and it hurt.

“C’mon, man, you know she can’t stand that, she didn’t tell us, we just knew,” Connor says and I shoot a grateful smile at him.

“I know, Sorry Mave… So anyways, how are things going?” Luke replies and I smile.

“It’s weird, everybody’s real cheerful and I mean, not the usual cheerful, like seriously cheerful,” Connor replies.

“Mave, Percy’s getting a little restless, you should get back here,” Luke says and I nod walking to the corner of the room and getting opening the trap door I have there. Then I walk back to the Stoll brothers and hug them.

“I’ll see you guys in a little while, ok? Please don’t steal anything from here, you know what happened last time,” I say and they nod, “See you in twenty seconds Luke,” I say and then I walk to the trap door and go into the tiny room I have there below. I feel my way around in the pitch black and I sit on the crates and then think of the Argo II I find myself next to Luke, he hasn’t noticed me yet and I sit tight.

“So when are you two gonna hook up huh?” Travis presses and Luke shakes his head and looks around I travel to next to him where he’s sure to see me. Connor and Travis see me as well.

“Hey Mave,” all three say in a rush, like children who have been caught talking about stealing cookies.

“Hey guys,” I say suspiciously.

“Percy is in the kitchen,” Luke says putting has hand on the back of his neck.

“Ok, thanks,” I say and I sit back on the Crates and think of the shadowy corner farthest from the window and lights.

“Holy Zeus, Poseidon and Hades!” Percy says with a jump and I start to laugh uncontrollably.

“You jumped so high, the gods are jealous,” I say as I get a hand on my laughter.

“Ha… Ha… Ha... he says then realises what I’m sitting on he starts to run towards me and I quickly jump out of the way and he looks at the eighty bottles of fizzy drink.

“Bu- bu- yu- ta...” he says I think the ‘ta’ was him saying thanks.

“I’ll leave you to it,” I say and I walk up to the deck as the rainbow disappears. I walk very to where Luke is standing, looking up at the stars. “Did I do the wrong thing?” I ask “Letting them talk to you?” I ask and he shakes his head.

“No, you didn’t,” he says but quickly changes the subject, “You know how before Percy was talking about… you know?” he asks and I nod, “What was he on about? I mean you’re cute and everything, but the age difference is what… eleven years?” he asks.

“Nine, you were dead for two, which means I could catch up a little,” I correct him with a laugh.

“Still, it’s a big gap,” he says and I look very the edge of the boat and see the ocean, “and I mean you’re cute and all-” he says and I smile before cutting him off.

“Thank you,” I say and he smiles.                                                                                

“But sometimes I still think of you as the little seven year old that used to have nightmares and ask me to hug her until she fell back asleep,” he admits.  _Some of those times I just wanted a hug and had been having awesome dreams beforehand,_ I think, knowing I’d never have the guts to admit it aloud.

“Well I still think of you as the boy that disappeared without an explanation,” I say and he sighs.

“Ok, you win that one,” he says and I smile.

“I know I do, and besides, I never stopped needing those hugs, in fact I needed them more after you disappeared because no-one told me where you’d gone or why, I had constant nightmares about you dying, or being captured and hurt,” I say and his eyes harden.

“Chiron is doing to find a sword stuck up his ass for that, he should have told you,” he says, hugging me tightly to him.

“You know, I moved into your tent for a little while, just while I was getting used to being in a room on my own before going into the Hades cabin,” I tell him and he smiles. “You know I watched you kill yourself, I see you for the first time in years and it happens to be then,” I say and tears start to fall.

“Mave, I’m sorry, you understand why I had to right?” he asks, putting his hands on my shoulders.

“I know, Kronos took over your body and you had to kill yourself to kill him,” I say and he nods. I wipe my eyes, and smile. “I just needed to talk about this before I broke up inside,” I say and he smiles.

“Remember, anytime you need to talk, about anything, I’m here for you,” he says and I nod.

“I never forgot, I missed that,” I say and then take a deep breath, “I’m going to go to bed now,” I say and he smiles.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says and I grin, Picking up my duffel bag from where I had put it, and I adjust my satchel bag, and walk to the stairs, “don’t stay up too late, you won’t be much use if your asleep all day tomorrow,” I say and he laughs and then I walk down the hall to the Hades/ Pluto cabin. I open the door and look around the lounge room that had three doors leading off of it, one closed on the left side of the room, and two open on the right. I see Hazel lying on one of the beds reading I go to knock on Nico's door but she calls out.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you… You really don’t want to know what he’s doing in there,” she says and my hand recoils from the door.

“Ew,” I say and I retreat to my room, “Thank you! Goodnight!” I call and close the door, I throw my bag on the bed and ope it, quickly unpacking my bag and filling up the chest of drawers with Jeans t-shirts and Jackets. I put my satchel bag on a chair and put my pencil and thumb drive in a glasses case on top of the dresser. I quickly get changed into a pair of blue pyjamas I look around the room and see that Leo had put my bow and arrows into the corner of the room. I look at the one item in the bottom of my bag and I pick it up. A scruffy Teddy bear about fifteen centimetres high. It used to be a light chocolate brown but with time it had lightened. I carry it out of my room, then out of the cabin, and into the Hall, I look at the symbols on the doors and spot the one I’m looking for, the winged staff with snakes wrapped around it. I knock and Luke opens the door, I hold out the bear and he laughs.

“No way!” he says and I grin, I’d given it to him on his birthday the month after I arrived at camp.

“Yes way, I just figured you might want him back,” I say with a smile.

“Thank you, now go to bed!” he says and I nod.

“Goodnight,” I say and I head off to my room again. When I get there I turn off the light and crawl under the covers of my bed, I fall asleep right away.

_We walked down from the tree that he’d been sitting at towards a big house I felt nervous because people were looking at me and Luke as we walked down the hill, I must have looked as scared as I felt because he put his hand on my shoulder that’s furthest from him and pulls me close to him, I felt a little bit better. A big light blue house comes into view and I look at it curiously, there was a man in a wheelchair sitting on the porch and something about him is intriguing. We get to the house and the man smiles at me warmly._

_“Chiron, this is-” Luke starts but my eyes light up._

_“Chiron? As in the son of Kronos? As in the centaur?” I ask and he laughs. Luke joins in and I grin._

_“Yes, that’s me,” he says and he rolls his wheelchair forward, “how did you know that,” he asks and I smile._

_“When I was five I had a teacher that told my class about you, and Zeus, and Hades and… the God of the sea, who’s name I can’t say!” I grin, they both smile._

_“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Chiron asks, in that voice all adults do when speaking to a seven year old. “What’s your name?” he asks._

_“Mavis Takashi Stray,” I reply and Chiron smiles wider._

_“Takashi? Isn’t that a boy’s name?” he asks and I frown, crossing my arms._

_“Yes it is and it means worthy of praise,” I say in an annoyed tone._

_“I’m sorry, Luke, why don’t you find her a bed in your cabin? Then show her around,” he suggests, probably hoping to get rid of the temperamental seven year old._

_“Sure,” Luke says with a smile._

_“Bye Chiron,” I say with a wave, and Luke pulls me in the direction of a horseshoe of little houses, all with different design he guides me to a little wooden one with a wraparound porch, this one is by far my favourite, it’s almost identical to what I pictured when someone said ‘home’ we go up the stairs and he pulls me out of the way as two brown haired, blue eyed boys come barrelling out of the door laughing._

_“Connor, Travis,” Luke greets them with a wide smile._

_“Luke! And… kid,” one of them says._

_“This is Mavis, she’ll be staying in our cabin until she’s claimed,” Luke tells them and they hold their hands out and I shake them._

_“Can I have my bracelet back?” I ask, my hand feeling to light all of a sudden, they both look shocked._

_“How did you know? No one ever knows,” they say and I roll my eyes._

_“I wear that bracelet everywhere I haven’t taken it of since I got it last year except for when my mom was having another few links put on,” I say and they hand me my black charm bracelet with a little black glittering skull, with a pink bow on it, right in the middle. I put it around my wrist and they laugh and run off again. “Silly boys,” I say and Luke laughs._

_“You learn quick Kid,” he says and he opens the door. I look around the crowded room and see walls lined with bunk beds, posters and other sorts of decoration. The room was mainly void of people except for a few kids, Luke leads me to a door at the end of the room and there into a larger version of the first, he takes me to a bare bunk._

_“This is one of the only spare bunks here, now you see that bunk just there, with the black cover?” he asks pointing to the bunk across from mine._

_“Yeah,” I say, the inflection in my voice just shy of turning my response into a question._

_“That’s my bunk, now if you ever feel sad, or have a bad dream, or just need a hug, just come wake me up, ok?” he asks and I nod. He leans down and pulls a chest from under my bed and opens it. “This is for all your stuff,” he says nodding to my bag._

_“Thank you,” I say and he smiles._

_“For what?” he asks, brushing a piece of my hair from the middle of my face and tucking it behind my ear._

_“Being nice and…” I say and the dream slows down, my words slurring and then the scene changed. One of my recurring nightmares from when Luke disappeared. It was of Adrian standing over Luke, a bloody knife in his hand, Luke dazed due to the pool of his blood that was surrounding him, there were words cut into his arms, Liar, cheat, bastard, reject, loser, lonely, and they repeated themselves over and over._

_“Mavis hates you!” Adrian calls and I scream._

_“No! No I don’t Luke No! Don’t listen to him! He’s lying!” I call but they can’t hear me, I try to run to them but my arms are tied by long chains to walls, and I sit struggling in the middle of a brightly lit room, with no shadows._

_“Luke, you know no one could want you around, no one could love you!” He continues to taunt._

_“I do! Need Him around! He’s my best friend!” I call and this time Luke hears me._

_“Liar,” he says to me as Adrian brings the dripping dagger down to Luke’s throat._

“NO!” I scream sitting up in bed. I look around me, disorientated, the Argo II, Luke’s alive, and Luke’s just down the hall. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and I look at the clock. Four am. I put my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands as I start to cry.  _If you ever feel sad, or have a bad dream, or just need a hug, just come wake me up, ok?_ Luke’s words ring in my head and I stand up, and open my door, I sneak out through the cabin and open the door and it doesn't creak. I sneak down the hall and knock on Luke’s door, a little while later I hear Luke’s tired voice.

“Who is it?” he calls and I sniffle.

“It’s me,” I say and the door flies open and he’s hugging me, my hands pressed to his chest.

“Hey, it’s alright, what happened,” he soothed, stroking my hair gently, he pulls me into his room and closes the door behind us. He turns on a light and he sits on his bed. With me beside him, I curl up in a little ball like I used to and cried into his side.

“You know I need you around right?” I ask finally and I sit back so I can look at his face, he looked confused.

“Of course I do,” he says his eyes caring.

“And you know you’re my best friend, don’t you?” I ask and he smiles.

“I know that,” he says still confused.

“And you wouldn’t let anybody tell you different, would you?” I persist and he hugs me to him again.

“Never in a million years,” he says kissing the top of my head, like he has since my first nightmare in the Hermes cabin. “Now are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asks and I take a shaky breath, and give him a run through of the dream. The first day of camp, the chain, the knife, the words, and the blood. When I had finished he started to rock us backwards and forwards softly and it calmed me down a little bit, but maybe it was listening to his heartbeat that did it. Then we hear arguing coming from Keily’s room.

“You owe me five bucks! I bet that it was a bad dream! You said it wasn’t! Ergo, you owe me five bucks!” Keily yells in frustration and I see a small hole in the wall that they could hear us through.

“I do not! Piper do I owe her?” Leo replies.

“Yeah, you do,” Piper replies and I put a finger to my lips and walk to the hole.

“Now, now children, I don’t want to come in there, but I will,” I say and I hear a collective jump.

“Sorry Mavis…. We just…” Piper says, at a loss for words, for once.

“No, I get it, really I do, but Leo, why don’t you pay up and then you and Piper can scramble off to your cabins,” I suggest and I can hear Leo sigh and hand over some cash, then the door closes.

“Keily, why don't you go to bed?” I suggest.

“Goodnight Mave,” she says and I get a tissue from a box near me and force it into the hole they’d made. I walk over to Luke who’s stifling a laugh, I curl up into his side again.

“What?” I ask quietly, as I start to fall asleep.

“Just how calm you can be all of a sudden,” he says and I smile he says and I smile.

“The thing about being the child of Hades, you can come across as calm, when really you’re burning inside,” I say as I drift off to sleep.

I woke up in my bed, in my room, Luke in the chair next to my bed, his hand holding mine. He looked so peaceful. I hear the door handle click and I pretend to be asleep. I hear light footsteps and then Luke’s grip on my hand loosens and then tightens again. They’d woken him up.

“Hey, Mavis,” Hazel says quietly, shaking my shoulders. “Wake up, little, older sister,” I open my eyes slowly and see she’s fully dressed, I look at the time.

“Shoot! Why didn’t you wake me up sooner? It’s ten o’clock?” I say and she shrugs.

“Nico said you usually sleep in this late,” she says and I frown.

“That boy is gonna get a piece of my mind,” I mumble and she smiles, “alright, I’m up,” I say and Hazel leaves.

“Good morning,” Luke said so cheerily it was funny.

“Morning, have a good first-day-back-from-the-underworld?” I ask and he laughs.

“Yeah, strangely enough, and I discovered, this chair is more comfortable that the mattress Leo gave me,” he says and I smile.

“That really wouldn’t be hard,” I say and he nods, “Go get dressed,” I say and he nods, standing up and putting a hand on my arm.

“Are you alright?” he asks and I smile.

“I’m just fine,” I say and he smiles and walks out of the room, closing my door behind him, truth is, I’m still breaking. I walk to my drawers and pull out my first camp T-shirt, I’d written on it, and I put a finger on the messy writing. “Friends- Luke, Connor, Travis, Nyssa, Chiron, Annabeth, Grover, Kaden," I read out, then put the shirt back in the drawer. I grab out a black college style shirt with Cross Academy written across it, and another pair of jeans, when I’m dressed I grab a belt out and wrap it around my waist, putting the short pencil and the thumb drive in special compartments. I quickly run a brush through my hair and remember. “Shit! Piper’s brush!” I put on a pair of socks and my converse again and I step into a shadow in the wall, I find myself in the empty Aphrodite cabin, and sure enough, there’s her brush sitting on her bed. I grabbed it and left, hopefully I wasn’t seen. When I get back I grab my bow and arrows and sling them over my shoulder, I walk out of my room and see Nico.

“Morning sleepy,” he says and I walk up to him and hit him up the back of the head lightly and he laughs. “Ok I deserved that, but I figured, after your dream, you’d want some extra sleep,” he says then looks like he’s said something he didn’t mean to.

“How did you know?” I ask narrowing my eyes.

“You assume that all the people that were listening were inside Keily’s room,” he says with a sigh and I poke him.

“You just poked the king of the ghosts….” He said with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, yes I did,” I say and he smiles.

“Fair enough,” he says and I grin and walk towards the door. I put a hand in another one of the little pockets on the belt and pull out a little tablet of my own invention... Well mine and Michael Yew’s.

“Please let this work,” I say and put the tablet in my mouth and it dissolves, all of a sudden I feel clean. “IT WORKS!” I exclaim louder than I mean to. Keily sticks her head out of her door.

“What works?” she asks curiously.

“The cleaning tablet! You know the one that Michael and I were working on?” I ask and she nods.

“It works!” I say and she laughs, holding a hand out.

“I want to see,” she says and I hand her one of them. She puts it in her mouth and she glows then goes back to normal.

“Feel better?” I ask and she grins, “Well I’m going to go and make omelettes, want one?” I ask and she nods. “Tomato and egg?” I ask and she nods again, slipping back into her room. I walk up to the deck where everyone else is and call out. “Hey, I’m making omelettes, who want’s one?” followed by a barrage of ‘Me’s’ and one ‘I’m vegetarian!’ which I assume was Piper. “Ok cool!” I call back and I walk down to the kitchen, I grab out the ingredients I need and get to making breakfast. When I had finished making the vegetarian omelettes I take a deep breath and get going on the normal ones. When they were all finished I shout “Anybody hungry?” and I hear a bunch of running footsteps. Then the guys were all standing in front of me and I hand them plates and they help themselves, luckily they were considerate and left the Hazel, Annabeth and I some, because I’d used all the eggs. Speaking of the girls they walked in at a more acceptable speed and got their breakfast then finally I sit around the large table with them, next to Luke and Keily, who was happily engaged in a debate with Leo about who’s better Apollo or Hephaestus. Looking around I realise that this is the kind of thing I’d felt I needed my entire life, this was the big (dysfunctional) family I’d always dreamed of having. I smile and start to eat. Looking around at the faces of my friends (well except Percy, he was being mean… NO FRIENDSHIP FOR HIM RIGHT NOW) Hazel is laughing at Frank who is attempting to balance a piece of omelette on the tip of his nose. Annabeth was smiling at Percy who's staring dreamily at her smiling, quite frankly it turned my stomach a bit. Jason and Piper were talking about the pros and cons of vegetarianism, Coach Hedge and Grover were nowhere to be seen, probably eating whatever Enchiladas they could find. Nico was staring at his food and not really eating it, lost in thought as usual. I pick up a piece of omelette and throw it at him and he jumps.

“What?” he asks shaking his head.

“Your food’s going cold, and I don’t cook things for people who let their food go cold,” I say jokingly and he smiles, which everyone notices and stops and stares jokingly.

“Ok now what are  _you_ guys looking at?” he asks his smile fading, they all shake their heads.

“No nothing,” Piper says with a laugh and then everyone goes back to what they were doing.

After breakfast everyone helped me load the dishwasher and when I hit go Kung Fu Fighting starts to play and we realise that Hedge’s MP3 Player had been plugged into it, I kneel down and unplug it just as Hedge bounds down the stairs. He looked Panicked.

“Mavis!” He called and for once he looked flustered. “Come on!” he says running up the stairs and I take off after him. When I get up to the deck I see what’s wrong, on the other end of an Iris message is Kaden, he looks really bad, and he has cuts all over his face along with mud and bruises.

“Kaden! Are you alright? Where are you?” I ask and he coughs, a bit of blood dribbling down his chin.

“My house, and I think my condition speaks for itself, don’t you?” he asks jokingly but he winces. I recognise the coat hook near the front door and know exactly where he is.

“Hold on I’ll be right there, you’re gonna be ok!” I say. “Keily! We’re going to need you here with your healing Mojo in about thirty seconds!” I yell running into a shadow and coming out next to Kaden, I see a figure standing on the other side of the room but don’t wait to find out who it is, I pull Kaden into the shadow before he can argue or the figure can see me. We come out on deck where Keily standing with vials of nectar in her steady hands, and Grover has his pipe ready.

“What happened?” Keily asks running to us.

“I don’t know!” I say, Kaden has passed out.

“Come on K, don’t die on me!” Keily yells. Giving him nectar as Grover plays his pipes, then despite their efforts, Kaden’s breathing slows to a stop.

“No!” I scream and Luke runs to me putting his arms around my waist to stop me from chucking a major spaz. I scream and battle and he puts his arms around mine so I can’t move. Keily keeps trying though, she wouldn’t stop, she can’t look away from Kaden’s lifeless body. “I was too late! I was too late! It’s my fault!” I scream and Luke pulls me away. Then Kaden twitches, then he coughs, and then gasps for air as his cuts and bruises fade. Luke lets go of me and I run to Kaden. He sits up and rubs his head.

“What the fuck did you guys give me? I feel higher than the gods!” he says with a laugh and Keily and I join in and hug him tightly.

“What happened?” I ask when I can speak again.

“Some guy knocks on the door, claiming to be from Fed Ex, so I open the door and he jumps me! Starts going all crazy Nymph on me!” then he pulls up the sleeve of his shirt, three words had been cut into his arm,  _Loser, reject, Lonely,_ “Then he wrote this,” I scream and back away, everyone crowds around to see what had done it, and the people who knew about my dream, they knew who had done it.

“Adrian,” I say shakily and I stand up. “Leo, where do you put armour in this giant tub?” I ask angrily, usually he would have objected to me calling it a tub, but not now.

“Down the hall then there’s a trap door, it’s all down there,” he says as I start to walk to the stairs, as soon as the sun is no longer visible I walk into a shadow and come out the other end. I find the trap door he told me about and I open it, light flooding the room below, I take she small amount of stairs and walk to the battle armour section, I put on all I needed, which was really just a leather breastplate and leg guards. I check my quiver and then refill it with arrows.

“I’m coming with you!” Keily says and I nod.

“I know, find whatever you need,” I say angrily. I hear footsteps coming down the stairs and I see Luke. “No, you are going to stay here, away from that thing!” I say urgently. He walks over to me and shakes his head.

“Mave,” he says with half a smile, “I’m not letting you go out there alone,” he says and my anger starts to burst out.

“I’ve been on quests since the year you disappeared! You let me go out alone then! You left me alone for years! Until  _I_  came and got  _you_!” I say and he doesn’t even look phased, he knows I don’t mean all of it. “You trying to be a hero didn’t work last time! It won’t work this time! You need to stay here where I know I can’t lose you!” I say now he looks sad, and I feel awful. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean any of it!” I say and I hug him.

“I know, don’t worry, I know,” he says and I pull away.

“Please, just stay here, if you die again, I won’t be able to get you out,” I say “then I’d be reckless, try and die so I could be with you,” I say and I glance over at Keily who is choosing a sword at the other end of the room, giving us some space.

“If I come with you, you can keep an eye on me, make sure I’ll be alright, I made the mistake of leaving you alone once, don’t make me make the same one again,” he begs and I sigh, I consider this option for a while, unable to decide what I’d rather more, his guaranteed safety, or to not be without him again.

“Fine, but I need you to promise me something,” I say and he lowers his head so it’s on an angle.

“Anything,” he says and I smile.

“If I say run, you run, if I say hide, you hide,” I say and he nods, holding out his pinkie, which I take in mine.

“Promise,” he says and I go back to the weapons, Keily comes over to me with a sword on her hip and a bow and Quiver slung over her back, she grabs twelve arrows from a box marked ‘ _Random selection- specialist arrows._ ’ I remember that her Dragon necklace turns into a bow.

“Is that a samurai Sword?” Luke asks her and she nods.

“That’s different,” I say wondering why Leo even has them down here. Luke is getting the armour he needs, my eyes lock on him. After a moment he looks up and smiles and I look away blushing. We walk out with our supplies. “We need to know what that thing is if we want to kill it,” I say as we walk up the hallway.

“How?” Keily asks trying to keep up with me.

“The camp, it’s the only place we can get the answers we need in time,” Luke says and she freezes.

“The camp? You know the place full of people who aren’t your biggest fans right now?” she asks.

“I have a plan,” I say and they both look surprised.

“Care to fill us in?” she persists.

“You and I go to the camp, tell them what… what I did, tell them what’s happening, tell them what that thing did to Kaden, maybe if we just tell Chiron, maybe he’ll understand and then he’ll help everyone else to understand,” I say and Luke smiles.

“Right, Ok, let’s go,” she says holding out her hand.

“Wait, I have to get something,” I say running back to my room. I open my top drawer and get a locket out, I wrap it around my neck and run back out to them. “Ok, all good,” I say and I hold a hand out to Keily, “Luke, wait here, I’ll come back for you in a little while,” I say and Keily and I step into the shadow. We find ourselves in the shadow of the big house and In front of Drew as she was walking towards the water.

“What the Hades are you doing here?” she squeals, a hand on her heart.

“We need to talk to Chiron, so will you please get out of our way?” I ask pleasantly, but she recoils like I’d hissed at her she walks around us and I let my time hanging out with Connor and Travis take very and I take her compact mirror from her pocket as she brushes past me. I hold it up and Keily laughs.

“She’s going to die without that!” she says and I put it in my pocket. We walk around to the porch where Chiron is sitting.

“Girls,” he greets not looking up from what he was reading.

“Chiron, could we have a word? There’s something we need to discuss,” I say calmly but with wide eyes to tell him it’s urgent.

“Of course, come inside,” he says and we walk through the door with him behind us, we walk into the lounge room and sit down. “Now, what’s the issue?” he asks and I take a deep breath. I decide to just say it.

“I brought Luke back from the under world,” I say and he looks like he’s about to lecture me so I cut him off. “That’s not what I’m here about, there’s a monster and it’s the guy that used to be my stepdad, Adrian, I’ve had dreams about him cutting Luke since he disappeared, but they were just dreams, but then he attacked Kaden,” I say and he sits back.

“OK, so why are you here? Why don’t you just go kill the monster?” he asks.

“Because this is nothing like any monster we have seen before, it likes to torture it’s victims, cut words into their arms, what they fear most, he cut Looser, reject, Lonely into Kaden's arm, and in my dream the words Liar, cheat, bastard, reject, loser, lonely, and they repeated themselves over and over were cut into Luke’s arm,” I say, and he freezes, like he’s suddenly realised what we’re talking about.

“An Empusaur,” he says urgently.

“What’s that?” Keily asks. Sitting forward.

“When an Empusa and a Centaur have offspring, that offspring is a multiplying, bloodthirsty creature that will do anything to get blood, though it also feeds on the blood curdling screams of someone being tortured, the fear that emanates from them, and it dances to the sounds of flesh being cut,” he says and I press my lips together.

“Multiplying? Like create copies of itself in a second?” I ask and he shakes his head.

“No, when it kills someone, he uses all the fear and blood to feed itself and then it will sleep for a week or so under the earth then when it wakes up another body has formed out of earth,” he says and I groan.

“More earth! Always more earth! I know that I was living under there for a few months… but still more freaking earth!” I say standing up. “This news is out of this world!” I say with sarcastic happiness as I start to pace to try and overcome my momentary panic attack.

“You’ll need more fighters than you three,” he says as if I hadn’t spoken and I nod.

“How many?” Keily asks, casting a nervous glance at me and he sighs.

“Maybe seven in total,” he says and I nod, a smile playing on my lips. “What?” he asks and I grin.

“I just had an idea,” I say and Keily grins, I walk to the wall where the shadow is darkest and I come out on the ship, I run up to the deck and see Chaos unfolding before me, there was a massive red dragon flying towards us, I draw an arrow and aim at it’s right eye, I lose my arrow and I hit the dragon, but it just deflects, everyone turns to look at me, and Leo starts shooting fire at the beast. I see remember my lessons on dragons at camp. Only fire or water can destroy fire. I run to Leo.

“Hey set this on fire,” I say holding and arrow to him, when it’s lit I draw it back and let it fly out through the air, right into the dragons left nostril, I hold another arrow out and Leo lights it and I fire again, this time I have the right angle and the arrow sticks in his nose the dragon sneezes and it throws him off, and he crashes into the sea, I look over the edge of the ship and see it’s on fire. “Percy, make yourself useful and put that out,” I say and he draws water from the sea and puts out the flames. “Why are we still flying Leo?” I ask and he shrugs.

“I was about to take us down to the water when that thing blew fire at us,” he says and I shake my head.

“Where’s Luke?” I ask with a smile.

“Dude’s in the kitchen, reading something, I think he got his hands on a Greek copy of a book,” he says and I grin and take off towards the stairs and into the kitchen where Luke’s sitting. When I come in he looks up.

“Hey,” he says with a crooked smile, his scar crinkling along with his eyes, just the way I like it.

“Hey,” I say and he stands up.

“Are we off now?” He asks and I nod he walks to a shadowy corner of the room, I walk over to him and take his hand. I think of the lounge room and then we’re there.

“Luke,” Chiron greets simply and we step towards him, Luke lets go of my hand and walks up to him and holds out his hand, Chiron takes it and shakes it once, before letting go. Luke steps back to me and I can see his hands are shaking so I take it in my hand. “So what is this plan of yours?” he asks me and I swallow.

“We get people to volunteer, then we’ll know that they really want to fight, and that they’re willing to fight alongside Luke,” I say and Chiron nods.

“I’ll get them to the front of the house,” he says and I nod. He rolls out and I sit on the lounge, letting go of Luke’s hand I drop my head to my hands.

“What am I going to say? Hi look who it is! Oh guess what I need four of you to join us on a quest that you will probably die on!” I say rhetorically Keily puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Mavis, listen to me!” she says and I look at her. “People like you, they trust you, they’ll follow you anywhere, weather it’s because they feel protective of the youngest of us, or if they honestly think of you as a leader is irrelevant, if you say you’re going on a quest that you could potentially die on, people will join,” she says and I nod, and take a deep breath and I stand up again, Luke’s smiling at Keily. I stand up and walk out to the porch, Keily comes and stands next to me, I look at the gathering campers and then up at the hill, I remember Luke and I walking down that hill on my first day, I could see what we would have looked like, wait no, there is another blond-haired boy walking down the hill with a small black haired girl at his side.. No her hair isn’t black, that’s the shadow, it’s blonde...

“Hannah,” I say and take off running towards my cousin who I recognised a moment after I saw her. I’ve only seen her once and that was last year after I tried to find my mother. When I get to her I see she’s with Pollux. I kneel in front of her and her mouth broadens into a grin and she hugs me tightly.

“MAVIS!” she says with a laugh and I look up at Pollux. He’s looking down at her adoringly.

“You know my sister?” he asks with a laugh and my brow furrows.

“I know my cousin,” I say with a confused smile. Dionysus walks down the hill behind them.

“Then you and Pollux are related... In a way,” Dionysus says and I gesture with my hands as in ‘I’m still confused’ he sighs and rolls his eyes.

“This is my daughter, Hannah, Pollux’s sister, and your cousin, congratulations, you have a family again,” He says and I feel anger boiling up inside myself. I take Hannah’s hand.

“Sweetie, I want you to promise me something,” I say, still kneeling, and looking her in the eyes.

“Anything Mavis,” she says and I smile, I’d already heard that today.

“I have to go away for a while, so no matter what, I want you to stay with Pollux, ok?” I say and she nods, a few tears in her eyes, I’d only seen her once that she could remember before today, but we’d become fast friends, and I’d promised one day I could keep her safe, I’d known she was a halfblood since the time I met her but Dad told me to leave her, that there was something she had to witness before she came to camp.

“I will,” she says and I stand up, looking at Pollux.

“Please keep her safe, she’s the only blood relative I have left,” I say and he nods, looking down at her.

“She’s all I have too,” he saw Dionysus looking out of the corner of his eye. “You’re the one who said that Godly DNA didn’t count,” he said in his defence and the god shrugs.

“Why don’t you go get settled in? I’ll come see you before I leave,” I promise and she nods. I let go of her hand and Pollux led her to the Dionysus cabin, I wipe a tear from my eye.

“Don’t you have a camp to reason with?” He asks and I nod walking towards the campers who parted for me as I walked to the front.

“Who was that?” Keily asks quietly.

“Later,” I say and I stand in front of the campers. I look for a familiar face and find three. Travis, Connor and Nyssa were all standing together and giving me encouraging smiles. “Hello,” I say shakily. “Even if nothing else comes of this meeting, I just need you all, to hear me out,” I say and I take a deep breath. “On the day that I came here, I ran away from my home, to get away from my step father, Adrian, he always insisted that Greek Mythology isn’t real,” I take another deep breath and an uneasy mumble goes through the group. “And now I know why, he wasn’t the usual step parent most of us have, mean and abusive,” I knew that this was true for most of the campers before me, the other few didn’t have any step parents, “He was, is, a monster, the demonic offspring of an Empusa and a Centaur, he thrives off the pain, torment and fear of others, and like most demonic beings, their blood. Early this morning, he attacked one of our own, Kaden the Satyr, before it was a problem, now it’s personal,” I say and people look angry and determined, perfect. “So I made a decision, we need to kill this thing, and as he was my step father, I need to be one of the ones who does, but I knew…” I freeze for a moment, I swallow my fear and continue, “That I wouldn’t be able to be a strong leader, and you all agree a leader needs to be strong in one way or another right?” I say slightly challenging.

“RIGHT!” they say in unison, like a battle cry rather than an agreement. Well I needed them to follow me for this, and they are, so I continue.

“Without certain emotional support… And this is where I need you to hear me out… I pulled in a favour from my father and I got my first friend, my best friend out of the underworld, Luke Castellan, minus the titan that was a part of him not all that long ago,” I say and Luke takes a step out of the shadow of the door suddenly people looked confused, betrayed and angry, but I don’t let it phase me, I’m on a roll, “Luke makes me stronger, he knows how to back up the way I fight, he IS NOT bad, it’s NOT his fault Kronos did what he did, and have you all forgotten? Who really stopped Kronos? Not Percy Jackson. Not Annabeth Chase. Not Ethan Nakumura. But LUKE! Now, I need four people who are willing to fight alongside the reason we’re all here today! I know that you all know I’m right! You know that deep down, Luke was always there, battling from the inside, he saved us all, and that means all of you, Drew, and Connor, and Travis, and Nyssa, and your parents, and your friends, and all of us!” I say holding my hands out, gesturing to the lot of them, and I could see that they realised it, weather they wanted to or not. I look around and see a figure in the shadow, it looked like a Giant wolf. “Marsie, come here girl,” I murmur and she ducks into the shadow and then follows Luke out of the door. Then she walks up so she’s standing next to me, she’s the same height as me, and our eyes were the same, we are bonded by birth, she is one of a kind and was born on the same day as I was, as I grew, she grew, when I got hurt, so did she, and if I die, so will she. “Now! Who’s with me?” I ask, challenging again.

“Me!” A daughter of Nemesis says walking up to the front of the porch, I’d seen her fight, and she’s Lethal and quick. The opposite of her deceased brother. I shake the thought of him from my head, he’s gone and I knew him for a sum total of two minutes.

“I am!” Nyssa says walking up to stand beside the girl.

“We are!” Connor and Travis say together,  _it will hurt if you loose them_ , my subconscious reminds me, and the Stoll brothers walk up beside us. Then almost every camper Joins in with various ‘I’s and ‘me’s I smile crookedly.

“I guess it’s time for a game,” I say and Turn to Chiron where he is standing in full horse form, I honestly hadn’t noticed him before. “Four flag?” I ask and he smiles, with a nod. “Everyone! We are going to play four flag, it’s like capture the flag, only no weapons are allowed, and it’s every man for himself, Luke, Keily, Chiron and I will set out a flag each in separate parts of the forest, the first four to a flag will come with us,” I announce and everyone cheers.

“The game will commence after an early lunch! Everyone, go prepare,” Chiron says and they all scatter.

“You’re a good leader,” Luke compliments me and I smile.

“Thank you,” I say and then I think of Hannah, “I’ll be back in time to set out my flag, I’ll take the south corner,” I say as I start to run towards the cabins. I get to the Dionysus cabin in a huff. I catch my breath and knock on the door. Pollux opens it and stands aside so I can come in. “Thanks,” I say and I walk to the bunk that Hannah is sitting on, her sketch pad on her lap, I sit next to her and look at what she’s drawing, it’s a picture of a lady, vines forming patterns on her skin. “How old are you again?” I ask and she smiles at me.

“Nine,” she says and I smile.

“Nine? Are you sure? I’ve never met a nine year old who could draw like this,” I say and she laughs.

“Yep, sure as ever!” she says and I smile.

“Well, they’re having an early lunch about now, so why don’t you,” I poke her in the belly “go and grab something to eat, I think your dad will want to introduce you to everyone,” I say and she puts he sketch pad to the side and she takes off, running faster than I would have thought possible for a child with such short legs, I stand up and walk over to Pollux who’s standing at the door still, I put a hand on his arm, “Hey, how are you handling this?” I ask and he lets a tear fall.

“Not so well, I’m keeping it together so she won’t ask why I’m crying, I won’t be able to handle that,” he says choking back a sob. “I just miss him so much Mave,” he says hugging me and I rub his back soothingly. A moment passed like that, him sobbing into the side of my head, and me rubbing his back, before he pulls away.

“Hey, it’s ok to miss him, it’s ok to cry, but I’ll tell you something,” I say and he looks at me curiously, he looked like a frightened puppy that had been kicked to many times. “When I get back, if you want, I’ll take you to see him,” I say and he smiles and starts crying again and I put a hand over his heart. “But until then remember, he’s still with you, right here,” I say and he nods. I reach up and wipe his tears away.

“A compassionate leader, this will be a change,” he says with a smile.

“Well as I said before, and you no doubt heard me, a leader must be strong in one way or another, I’m strong in the way of my heart,” I say and he smiles.

“Come on, I better not leave her alone, she’ll be the only one at the table,” he says and I nod and we walk up to the dining pavilion together. When we get there I see Luke is sitting at the Hades table, rather than the Hermes one, picking at the plate of food in front of him, and Keily is over with her brothers and sisters laughing. Pollux smiles and walks to where Hannah is sitting on her own with her plate of food, and I walk over to Luke. I sit next to him and put my elbows on the table and my head in my hands.

“Not hungry?” I ask and he sighs.

“Not really,” he says and I look up at him. He looked sad and confused.

“Hey, why aren’t you sitting with your brothers and sisters?” I ask, referring to the table of loud kids who were determinedly stealing each other’s biscuits and pieces of jewellery.

“You said you’re stronger when I’m by your side, so by your side I intend to stay,” he says with a smile and I laugh,

“Forever?” I ask, holding out my pinkie again.

“And always,” he says with a crooked smile while wrapping his pinkie around mine, “it really was a great speech, you have them wrapped around your finger. I think that if you told them to jump off a cliff right now, they would,” he says and I shrug. I remember a story that my mother told me once  _‘Once there was a little girl, she was the daughter of the dark king and a normal woman, but all the other kings and queens blessed her with a different gift each, for she was the only daughter of the dark king who could duck through the shadows from birth,’_ the voice rang in my ears, the shadow princess was my favourite story but when I asked the other little kids if they had heard it they all shook their heads, and so I forgot about the story, until now.

“The shadow princess,” I whisper and I grin.

“The… what?” Luke asked and I smile at him.

“I need to talk to Dad,” I say and he looks at me like I’m crazy.

 “You really call Hades dad?” he asks with a small smile.

“You called Hermes dad,” I remind him and he shrugs.

“True. Well, are we going to the underworld?” he asks and I laugh.

“There’s more than one way to talk to the god of the underworld, we don’t have to actually go and see him,” I say and I stand up, Luke stands, leaving his plate on the table. “But first, we have a Cyclops to find,” I say and walk off towards the forge. Luke catches up and takes my hand, I start to grin. When we get there I put my head in the door and see Tyson hammering away on a sword.

“Hey Ty!” I say as I step in, he looks up and grins, his big brown eye sparkling.

“MAVIS!” he says finishing up the sword he was working on. He puts in a rack and then comes over to me, wiping his hands on the apron he’s wearing.

“Hey buddy, how are you going?” I ask before he wraps me in a bear hug. “Tyson… Can’t… Breath…” I say with a laugh, patting his arm and he lets go with a laugh.

“Sorry, can I help?” he asks and I smile.

“No buddy, I just wanted to come and see how you are going,” I say and he smiles wider.

“Oh… I have a present for you!” he says and I smile as he walks over to a small box, and brings it over to me, I smile and open it.

“Ty, thank you,” I say lifting the white spiral necklace out and putting it around my neck.

“You see that little ball in the middle?” he asks pointing to the little crystal in the centre of the spiral of metal.

“Yeah,” I ask and he pokes it and suddenly the crystal drops, changing into a black shield with a skull and crossbones on it as it drops, I catch it quickly and smile at it.

“Then you press a button in the back and it goes back into a necklace,” he says and I smile pressing the button that he pointed to and the crystal appears back on the spiral. I hug him tightly.

“You’re the best cousin in the world, did you know that?” I say and he smiles bashfully.

“So are you,” he says and I laugh.

“Alright big guy, I’m going to go talk to my dad, then I have a game to prepare for,” I say and he laughs.

“Bye,” he says and starts to walk back inside.

“Oh and Tyson?” I say and he turns around, “When I come back, I’ll bring you a jar of Peanut butter,” I say and he grins and walks inside, I turn to Luke who was standing a little ways back with a smile on his face, I put the necklace back on.

“Peanut Butter?” He asks walking over to me.

“He’s kinda partial to it,” I say and he smiles.

“He’s probably the most mixed up character I have ever seen,” he says in an endearing way.

“Yeah I know. Come on, I the Hades cabin is this way,” I say pointing towards my black and green cabin.

“Wow… That’s cheerful,” he says and I laugh.

“Blame Nico, he literally let me have no say!” I say with a laugh and we start to walk towards it.

“The dude’s a bit of a silent control freak, when he doesn’t like something, he doesn’t have to say anything, you just know,” he says and I smile wider than I had in a long time.

“Yeah, but I think he kind of captured the perceived essence of Hades,” I say as we get to the door and walk inside.

“I guess, wow the inside isn’t any better,” he says looking at the first room which somehow Nico had convinced Chiron to let it be a lounge room of a sort, with the two doors leading off, his room and mine, both had two sets of bunks so we’re cool if there are any more additions.

“My room’s a little better, I managed to put up some of those little lights that the Hephaestus cabin made ages ago,” I say leading him through the door on the left. He stops in the doorway and I turn back. “My room’s not going to eat you!” I say and he looks unsure, like it actually would. I roll my eyes and walk back to him, grabbing his hand and pulling him in, which makes him chuckle. I pick up one of the Drachmas I have and throw it into my fountain. “Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering, show me Hades in the underworld,” I say and the image appears in front of me.

“Mave! I see you got your friend out,” he says in a formal, but happy voice.

“Yeah I did… And I have a few questions for you,” I say, we’d played this game before, I’d start with that then no matter what I asked, he wasn’t allowed to say that it’s stupid or get mad, he has to answer truthfully.

“Shoot,” he says making a little gun shape with his hand.

“Ok one, were you my substitute teacher when I was in kindergarten? The one who told us about Greek Mythology?” I ask and he holds back a smile.

“Yes, I was, next question?” he asks and I smile.

“Do you know the story about the shadow princess?” I ask and his mouth twitches at the corners.

“Yes I do, next question,” he says and I take a deep breath, this is the question that counted.

“Who is that story about?” I ask and now he smiles.

“So you’ve worked it out?” he asks rhetorically.

“Nope, that’s not how this game works, who’s it about?” I press, my smile growing wider, I look at Luke and his face is contorted in full-blown confusion.

“You, the story is about you,” he says and I start to grin.

“What are the gifts?” I ask and he sighs.

“Mave, I know I’m breaking the rules, but you have to ask your uncle,” he says and I sigh, he really did enjoy the formalities, Uncle’s, Aunt’s, and Cousin’s.

“Which one?” I ask and he purses his lips.

“Zeus, the one that counts… Oh and I wouldn’t let him see Castellan, he still holds a grudge,” he says and I laugh.

“We were just on the Argo II, he knows Luke’s back and we’re still alive, so I think we’re good, but thanks, for the advice,” I say and he nods and waves a hand through his image and I sigh.

“You like him?” Luke asks incredulously.

“He’s not usually like that, he’s just annoyed because you were dead and then you were able to leave the underworld until you die again… Which will be of old age if I have any say in it,” I say and we laugh, “But he can only leave for short periods of time,” I continue and he sighs. And I pick up another Drachma. “You have about twenty seconds to decide whether you’re going to stay for this call or go,” I say and he wraps an arm around my shoulder as I throw the coin into the fountain. “Oh Iris goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering, show me Zeus on mount Olympus,” I say and the image changes  _please be in a good mood, please be in a good mood,_ I silently beg.

“Mavis?” he asks and I smile.

“Zeus,” I say in greeting, he used my name instead of, ‘Illegal offspring of my unworthy brother’ so that’s a good sign. He looks at Luke and grunts, then proceeds to ignore him.

“I take it my brother told you then?” he asks reading my expression.

“I guessed actually, and he wouldn’t tell me what the gifts were, he told me to ask you,” I say as formally as I can.

“Because I told him I wanted to tell you myself, but I want to in person, I need you to come to Mount Olympus, today,” he says and I sigh.

 “I can’t make it until tonight, is that ok?” I ask and I look at Luke who’s questioning me with his eyes. “We’ll leave in the morning when everyone is well rested,” I explain and he nods.

“That’s fine, as long as you’re here at five o’clock,”


	2. I have a Date with a God

When I finished the call with Zeus I roll my eyes.

“That was fun!” I say with a laugh.

“You’re telling me, the entire time I could swear he was imagining eating my Kidneys,” he says and I burst out laughing and he joins in. He leaves his arm around my shoulders and we walk out of the cabin.

“You know, I think I like you better with your kidneys,” I say jokingly and he hugs me tighter to his side for a moment.

“I think I like myself better with them too,” he says as we get to the big house where Chiron is carrying four flags, each a different colour; a black one, a white one, a yellow one, and a silver one.

“One for each god,” he’s explaining to Keily who’s by his side, and she takes the yellow one he hands her. Great black one for me, I mean it’s perfect, but after a while you get sick of being stereotyped as ‘the black one,’ or ‘the dark one,’ or now in my dad’s case ‘the shadow princess,’ “Ah I see that they have finally decided to re-join us,” Chiron adds regarding us.

“Look Chiron, I know you’re pissed but can you stop talking to us like we’re pieces of shit?” I ask angrily, as he hands me the black flag, and Luke the silver one.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t…” he trails off, seeing the anger in my eyes, Nico isn’t the only one who’s suffered at the hands of my temper. “When will you be leaving on this quest of yours?” he asks and I smile.

“Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock,” I reply and he looks confused.

“I would have thought you’d want to leave today,” he says and I shake my head.

“Well two things, one: I rescued Kaden from right in front of it today, it’ll be expecting us to come after it today, so if we leave tomorrow, its guard will be down. And two: tonight I have a date with a god,” I say and he looks at me confused. “Well many gods, really, all of the major ones except Daddy dearest,” I say and he raises an eyebrow – I can imagine Dad’s disdainful look at the name.

“Set up a meeting to secure the safety of Luke?” he asks as a polite jab.

“Actually,” I say with a dramatic pause, “I was invited,” I say and he looks astounded. “Keily you got the west corner right? You’ll be ok to get there on your own?” I ask and she nods with a smile, she’s going to annoy the hell out of Chiron for me. “Well I’ll see you at the end of the game, as soon as your flag has been gotten, you come back to the porch here with your champion,” I say and she nods. Luke and I walk into the nearest shadow and we open our eyes in the Far East corner of the forest.

“So, what’s going on with you three?” Luke asks, referring to Keily, Chiron, and I.

“Oh you know, Keily and I left camp without permission, Ok we decided to leave, no time to relax really, to many rules, then when I came back yesterday he was pissed, tried some, ‘people on a quest don’t come back until they either fail or succeed on said quest,’ crap on me and I threw back ‘I’m not one of the seven, I’m just tagging along for a while,’ and he got real mad when I just walked off, so now he’s talking to us like shit because that’s all he can do to us now,” I explain and he raises an eyebrow.

“You ditched camp?” he asks and I nod.

“Yes now, this is your corner, plant your flag somewhere and I’ll see you after the game I say and he hesitates before letting go of my shoulders. I smile and duck into a shadow and come out in the south corner, the best place to plant a flag. I hear all the campers cheering far off, they’ll start the game soon, and already I am longing to be with Luke and Keily, and the rest of my family aboard the Argo II again. Then I feel them running towards the forest like a stampede. Then Mr. D’s voice. Explaining the rules of the game, that they were not to try and kill each other and that when they got to a flag, stick with whoever the ‘guardian’ of the flag was, until they got to the porch again, and the game was over. I sit and listen as the campers start the game, a few yelps that I believe belong to Drew. I snicker quietly and sit cross-legged on a large rock with my flag stuck in the ground beside me. For about fifteen minutes I listen to confused and frustrated cries when campers couldn’t find a flag, until about four campers show up at once from different angles, they are all wearing helmets so I can’t see who they are, but one is smaller, and definitely female.

“Game on! Come get it!” I say with a laugh and they all look at each other and run towards the flag, and to my surprise, the girl who looked flimsy and like she’d break at any moment ran with so much speed in a weaving motion around the boys with a green thing following her then around a tree, the boys all hit the long green thing, which I now see is a vine, and topple over, the girl then dances over to me and I smile. “Demeter?” I ask and she smiles pulling off her helmet, I see she’s very pretty, and she reminds me slightly of a nymph. “Name?” I ask and she smiles, holding out her hand.

“Lucinda Kurr, but you can call me Lucy,” she says and I shake her dainty hand. “You’re doubting that I’m good enough for this quest aren’t you?” she asks as the boys start to get up and remove their helmets so they can rub their heads. I recognise two of them; Will Solace, Keily’s brother, and Mitchel, Piper’s brother. The other one I didn’t know.

“I just saw you take down three great fighters in under five seconds, I’m not doubting you,” I say and she grins. “Let’s get out of here,” I say and she nods, grabbing the flag. I put a hand on her wrist and pull her into the shadow, she blinks a few times when we arrive in the shadow of the big house.

“Wow, how?” she asks as we walk around to the porch that is completely empty.

“Daughter of Hades, I can do that,” I answer simply and she nods, we sit at the small table there. “So Lucinda… Can I call you Lucy?” I ask and she shrugs.

“I prefer Lucky, honestly,” she says quietly and I nod.

“Lucky it is, how old are you lucky?” I ask and she sighs.

“Fifteen almost sixteen, people always treat me like a toddler because of it!” she replies and I burst out laughing.

“What?” she asks and I get a hold on my laughter quickly.

“It’s just I’m fifteen, and only barely, and people treat me like I’m older,” I say and she crosses her arms. A few clouds pass in front of the sun and a large shadow is cast over the camp.

“You know, for a daughter of Hades, you’re very boppy,” she says with half a sneer and for that I grab her hand and take her back to the middle of the Forest, and put her down, before going back to where I was sitting before, right in front of Clarisse.

“Holy Hades!” she exclaims before walking over to me calmly.

“Guess what, you’re now the champion of the black flag, congratulations,” I say, Clarisse I could handle, but not scrawny bitches who will label me according to my father, oh the stories I could tell her about her mother.

“Great, I got no issue with that,” she says and I grab her hand and we end up at the big house. Where Keily is now sitting with Nyssa, playing a rather intense game of go fish.

“Hey guys!” I say, “Got La Rue,” I say with a sly smile.

“Yeah I saw you dump the other girl, what happened there?” Keily asks and I laugh. “Four of hearts?” she asks Nyssa.

“Go fish,” she replies and laughs as Keily picks up a card.

“Scrawny Scylla tried to stereotype me cause of Dad, big mistake there,” I reply and the four of us start laughing. Clarisse and I walk up to where they’re sitting. I lean on one of the poles holding the awning up. “So where were you held up?” I ask and Keily smirks.

“Near the river, where I got my first scar,” she says and I shake my head, she always sentimental about that spot.

“That would have been hard to guess,” I say sarcastically and she grins.

“Oh it was,” Nyssa says jokingly, rolling her eyes. “Two of spades?” she asks and Keily hands over a card. “I win!” she exclaims.

“Damn it! I really wanted another Katana!” Keily says in a huff, “What about you,” she asked me.

“Where else?” I ask and she laughs, knowing where I mean.

“The pile of rocks that we used during the battle,” she says and I laugh

“That’s the one! Hey, La Rue, I’m sure you have something to say, I’ve never heard you be this quiet,” I say with a light chuckle. She smiles and pushes my shoulder.

“Hey, look who it is,” Nyssa says, gesturing behind me with her chin. I turn and see Luke walking up with a girl who I recognised to be a daughter of Aphrodite, but I’d seen her fight, she’s dangerous and fast. I smile and walk over to them. The girl smiles warmly at me, and for the first time since I met Piper, I liked a daughter of the love goddess.

“Hi, I’m Katie,” she says holding her olive skinned hand out to me, I take it in mine and shake it.

“I’m Mavis, I’ve seen you fight, you’re good,” I say and she grins and her face startles me, her eyes changed from green, to blue, to purple and back. She looks younger than me, but I know she’s about sixteen or seventeen.

“Thanks,” she says as I drop her hand and move so I’m next to Luke and we walk up to the porch.

“Hey Clarisse,” Luke greets her and she nods to him, looking away. Luke opens his mouth to say something but I shake my head.

“Don’t, she’s not ripping your head off, accept that, ok?” I warn him softly and he nods, she looks at me and nods as well. I knew this was a truce that was being formed, but at the moment it’s delicate.

“Are we all here?” Chiron asks with a slightly ill looking Connor and Travis sitting on his back.

“Yeah,” I say stifling a laugh.

“These two refused to separate, so I figured, an extra set of hands would be helpful,” He says as the brothers slide off his back and stumble over to us.

“Remind us to never accept a ride from Chiron again,” Connor says sitting on the stairs.

“Will do,” Luke says with a laugh. Katie taps me on the arm gently and I turn to look at her.

“Do you have a hair tie I could borrow?” she asks timidly and I gab one off my wrist and hand it to her.

“Thanks,” she says twisting her long brown hair into a bun smaller than I would have thought possible with hair that long.

“Any time,” I say and turn back to see Chiron cantering back to the forest to round up the campers.

“Majestic isn’t he?” Luke asks with a laugh and we all join in.

“Absolutely,” I agree and sit down. Katie and Luke follow suit on either side of me.

“So Katie, how old are you?” I ask and she smiles.

“Sixteen and a half,” she replies quietly and I poke her.

“Really? Cool, you know you don’t have to be quiet if you don’t want, I know Drew is in charge at the moment and doesn’t like you being loud, but I’m not Drew,” I say and she smiles.

“Thanks, she honestly frightens me,” she admits and I smile and get the compact from my pocket.

“She frightens me too, that’s why I took this, thought she’d freak if she couldn’t find it,” I say and I hear Keily and Nyssa start up their game again. Katie laughs and I hand her the compact. “Keep hold of that, when she gets on your nerves, show her you have it, and you’re not scared of her anymore,” I say and she nods with a wide smile. We look over to the forest and see campers coming between the trees.

“Show time, on your feet,” Luke says standing up and Katie and I stand and she walks to his other side, Clarisse turns around and stand next to me, Nyssa and Keily Join the line, followed bu Connor and Travis. As the campers gather in front of us I take a deep breath. I take Luke’s hand, because I’m suddenly nervous, he gives it a squeeze and I feel a bit better.

“Hey! How come there are eight of ‘em up there?” a son of Hecate calls from the back of the crowd, I only know of his mother due to the purple fog emanating from him in his angry confusion.

“Have you ever tried to separate the Stoll brothers?” Mitchell calls from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, other than that, no one argues.

“We have out questers, a fine team you’ll make, I’m sure,” Dionysus says from behind us. Then something occurs to me.

“Hey Mr. D, weren’t you called back to Mount Olympus?” I say and he smirks.

“Yes, but I was sent down to see what the shenanigans about Castellan being alive is all about,” he says and I shrug.

“Fair enough,” I say as Chiron trots up to us.

“Our questers are; Mavis Takashi Stray, Clarisse La Rue, Keily Otari, Nyssa Mandaris, Luke Castellan, Katie Maree Kruna, Connor Stoll, and Travis Stoll, they will leave tomorrow at eight am, now everyone, back to your usual activities!” Chiron says and everyone sighs but then walk off in different directions. Chiron turns to face us and looks over us.

“This is a mismatched bunch,” he says his eyes narrowing when he sees mine and Luke’s intertwined hands.

“Maybe it’s the fact that we’re mismatched that we’ll succeed,” I say narrowing my eyes as if Chiron and I were having a competition to see who could get their eyes narrowest.

“Maybe,” he says and walks away without another word, behind us, Dionysus scoffs.

“Temperamental old centaur,” he says and for the first time, I liked the camp’s director. “You should all get to strategizing,” he says and walks inside.

“We’ll have the most privacy in the lounge room of my cabin,” I say and everyone agrees. As a group we walk to my cabin and Katie and Clarisse hesitate and glance at each other before coming in my door.

“Clarisse, Katie, welcome to the Hades cabin,” I say and we sit in the lounge room on various chairs and lounges.

“So, what are we doing?” Connor asks and I laugh, reminded of a scene from Lord of the Rings where a hobbit, Pippin, asks ‘where are we going?’ after signing up for a life threatening quest. We spend the next hours discussing our course of action, we decided it would be best to take Pegasus, and send them home when we land in Manhattan, and I’d have to talk to Zeus about not killing us on the way. When I look at the time I blink to make sure I saw right.

“Shit! Guys, I gotta go talk to Zeus in a minute, and you guys have to go to dinner soon,” I say and everyone nods and stands up.

“See you at campfire, if you’re back in time,” Travis says and I nod.

“Hey, Travis, I promised I’d come back soon, didn’t I?” I say jokingly and he nods and laughs as he leaves with the rest of them, until only Luke and I are left in the cabin’s now seemingly empty lounge room.

“Ok, well I’ll see you when you get back, okay?” Luke says, letting go of my hand for the first time in hours. I smile at him and he smiles back.

“I’ll see you then… Thank you, for risking your life for me… again,” I say and he nods, and walks towards the door.

“No worries, shadow princess,” he says ducking out the door. I walk to my room in full smiles. I grab out a clean pair of jeans, then think better of them, I grab out a floor length black dress, which had been shortened just a little bit so it didn’t drag along the ground, and a pair of black flat shoes. Hera had once re-dressed me when she didn’t approve of my ripped jeans and T-shirt- might I add that this was after the battle for Olympus, why she cared what I wore is anybody’s guess-, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I walk to the bathroom that is between Nico’s and my rooms, with a door from each room. I lock both doors and start the shower. When I’m clean and dressed, I walk out brushing my hair into a bun with pieces falling around my face. A trick that I’d learned while getting ready for my class play when I was ten, the only time I ever went to school from camp was that year. Looking at the clock I see that it’s ten to five so I think about the Janitors closet on the fourth floor as I walk to the corner. When I’m in the closet I open the door to make sure no one is in the hallway and I duck out and press the button for the elevator. When the doors open I step inside and press the button that is hidden by the mist, which will take me to Olympus. Once at the top the doors open and I look around.

“Yep, Annabeth has definitely been here,” I say to myself and picture the shadow near the front doors to the ‘Main Hall’ as I call it, and I walk into the nearest shadow and emerge right where I thought I would. I knock and the doors swing open. I see the gods in their massive forms, most of them smiling at me, except Poseidon, who’s annoyed at my Dad again no doubt. Hera looked pleased that I was wearing something suitable.

“Mavis,” Zeus greets simply and I sigh, only the Major Olympians were her today.

“Zeus” I greet him then go through the long and formal process of greeting the gods, “Hera, Poseidon,” I say in one breath and bow my head to them, “Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Demeter,” I add bowing my head again, six down, six to go, I think solemnly, “Dionysus, Artemis, Apollo,” I nod my head, one more lot, “Hermes, Athena, Ares,” I say nodding once more. Hermes looks at me like he wants to talk to me, about Luke no doubt.

“I have invited you here, so you can learn of your gifts that we have bestowed upon you,” Zeus says so firmly and formally, I want to shrink back into darkness but I stand my ground and force myself to smile politely. “Usually we would tell you each in our ow time, but as it seems you have your mind set on knowing, we shall tell you now, let’s begin,” he adds and I feel my smile falter for a moment. “I gave you an… Ease of passage through my domain, which means you can fly without being struck down, a gift which you somehow managed to pass to your bother, Nico Di Angelo recently,” he says and I sigh, Nico’s safe, for now at least. Athena stepped forward.

“I gave you a thirst for knowledge, and the ability to strategize when others are… uh… Frazzled,” she says with an extremely pretty grin, remembering the word I’d used on the one encounter we’d had that I could remember. I smile and look at Ares as he stands up.

“I gave you determination… Fight, like no one other than my children has,” he says and I smile, from the god of war, that was a pretty cool gift. Seeing as he could have given me something like the love of cutting my hair extremely short or something. He sits down and Hephaestus stands up, fiddling with a nut and bolt like I’d seen Leo do when he’s nervous.

“I gave you a love of building, whatever your skill of building is, I have no idea, and weather it’s a love of building items, or personal bonds is up to your personality,” he says and I smile wider.

“Well I can’t build items, so I’m guessing it’s the latter,” I say and he nods, sitting down as Aphrodite stands up.

“I gave you a gift, similar to charm speak, it causes people to trust you, follow you,” she says and that is possibly the most effective gift yet. She sits down with a warm smile and Apollo stands.

“I gave you healing skills,” he says with a grin “also, wicked Haiku skills,” I roll my eyes as he sits down. Hera stands up.

“I gave you a happy ending,” she says and I feel touched, I blink back a tear. She sits down and Poseidon stands.

“I gave you the gift of being able to breathe underwater,” he says sitting down as Artemis stands up.

“I gave you the gift of stealth,” she says with a wink and sits down. Demeter stands up with a glare, she must have seen, or been told about what happened with her daughter.

“I gave you the gift of control over flowers and vines,” she says and my shoulders droop slightly. She sits and Hermes stands.

“I gave you the gift of… sticky fingers,” he says and I smile, he sits and Dionysus stands last.

“I gave you the ability to turn water into wine,” the look on his face told me ‘yes that’s me making fun of Christianity,’ he says sitting down.

“Thank you, all of you, but why?” I ask and Zeus stands once more.

“Because you are the third demigod born, by the… uhh Big three... since the Second World War… You should ask Chiron about that actually, but because these gifts will help you to survive,” he says “Now I believe Hermes has a few words he wishes to have with you,” he says dismissively, and the other Olympians stand and leave, to go about their business, whatever that is. Hermes walks over to me, shrinking as he comes over.

“Hello Mavis,” he says with a smile.

“Hermes,” I greet, nervously.

“I just want to thank you,” he says which startles me. I’d expected him to be angry, or something that would make sense.

“For bringing Luke back?” I ask and he smiles.

“Yes,” he says and I smile back at him.

“Well I couldn’t leave my best friend down there when I didn’t have to,” I say and he looks at me funny. He’s not buying it.

“Is that the only reason you brought him back?” he asks ask though he knows the answer.

“Look, I missed him ok? He really is my best friend and I would have tried to join him, had my father just let me die!” I say clenching my fist.

“Thought so,” he said smugly and I change the subject.

“Why is Poseidon angry this time?” I ask looking over at him as he lounged in his throne.

“He and your father had a bet, and your dad, he won,” he tells me and I nod.

“What was the bet?” I ask him, curiously.

“Uh… That you’d take advantage of the doors being open,” he says and I smile.

“So what did I win for my dad?” I ask with a smile that he matches.

“Not a clue, must have been important though,” he says with a shrug.

“Ok, well I‘ve got to go, I’ll see you around,” I say as I turn to step into the shadows.

“Wait,” he says putting his hand on my elbow and I turn.

“What?” I ask pulling my elbow away from him.

“Sticky fingers is not my gift,” he says and I raise my eyebrow. “I gave you a future, I can’t tell you more than that, but when you work it out, you’ll thank me,” he says and I nod, before disappearing into the shadows. I’d never tried going directly from Olympus to camp, but I’m trying it now. I find myself in the same spot I was in when I returned to camp from the Argo II, near the campfire. I see Luke sitting towards the outskirts of the group and I walk over to him and collapse next to him.

“Hey there,” he says as I lean my head on his shoulder. Keily stands up from where she’s sitting and runs over to us. A smile plastered across her face, she sits next to us, her ripped skinny jeans covered in dirt, and her white and black flannel shirt pretty much the same.

“Hey,” she says happily, watching the fire change colours as the others sang.

“Why are you so happy?” I ask with a laugh, and she looks down at the ground.

“No reason,” she says, and I sit up.

“Leo called didn’t he?” I ask and she nods.

“And?” I press for details and she shakes her head, “awe come on Kee!” I say and she looks at me.

“Nothing! Honestly!” she says with a laugh.

“Tell her the truth! You’re such a bad liar!” Luke exclaims and I look at him with wide eyes, then back at her.

“You told him before me, ok now you have to tell me!” I beg and she rolls her eyes.

“He asked if I wanted to hang out, up there… It’s no big deal,” she says blushing.

“No big deal? Did you just say no big deal?” I ask with a grin. “What did you say?” I ask bewildered.

“I said no” she says sarcastically, “what do you think I said Mave?” she asks rhetorically, and I hug her. “So what’s going on with you guys?” she asks me and Luke and I blush looking away.

“I… Uh… I don’t know… Luke, have you got a better answer for her?” I ask and he smiles crookedly.

“Want to go work it out?” he asks and I nod, standing up, he stands and we walk away from a glowing Keily she stared into the fire dreamily, seriously anyone would thing Eros had poked her and the fire. We walked in peaceful silence by the lake for a moment.

“So,” I say to start us off, and he looks down at me, his blond hair falling in his eyes. “Time for a haircut,” I say absent-mindedly reaching up and moving it from his eyes. He laughs lightly and I feel like I’m flying.

“So,” he says and I smile, “What do you think?” he asks and I look up at him again, seeing the moon glinting in his blue eyes, I felt like I was on top of the world.

“I think that I’ve seriously liked you for quite a while,” I say and he grins.

“Hey Mavis?” he asks and I stop walking to turn to face him ‘I gave you a future,’ Hermes words echoed in my heads and I think I know what he means.

“Yeah?” I ask and he brushes a piece of hair behind my ear.

“Do you want to go out with me?” he asks uncertainty, and I grin and hug him tightly, listening to his heart beat as he puts a hand on my back.

“Yes,” I murmur and he kisses the top of my head.

“I love you, Mave,” he says and I close my eyes in bliss.

“I love you too Luke,” I reply and pull away and take his hand. I love this already. We walk back to the campfire, our arms swinging between us. Keily was right where we left her staring dreamily into the fire. We sit next to her and she looks at us, then our hands, the blue and green fire flickered with a deep red as I leaned into Luke’s shoulder, Keily, Luke, and my feelings overpowering the happiness of some of the campers.

“So…?” she asks with a raised eyebrow, and I nod she grin broadly and the three of us start to join in with the songs.

When we had all finished singing the three of us stood up and waved to Nyssa, Connor and Travis who were talking and walking away. We walk towards the Apollo cabin first and I hear a few people humming inside.

“So we get going in the morning,” Keily asks and I nod and then lean my head on Luke’s shoulder.

“Yeah, we’ll see you then,” I say tiredly, struggling to keep my eyes open.

“See you then, get some sleep,” she says and walks inside without another word. Luke and I share a look but don’t say anything about her tired distance. We start to walk towards the Hermes cabin in silence I rest my head on his shoulder and I can tell something is bothering him.

“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly.

“I’m just remembering what I’ve done… To everyone here,” he says and I sigh.

“Luke...”

“No, Mavis, I did the wrong thing. Don’t try and tell me I didn’t because we both know it’s bull,” he says, his tone hinting at the anger I know is inside his head.

“I know you did… I was just going to say that you did what you thought was right, and after all isn’t that what they are teaching us to do?”

“Right for who?” he asks and I look up at him as we stop walking outside the Hermes cabin.

“That doesn’t matter,” I start and he sighs “Luke, it’s not your fault… Besides you saved us all in the end,” I say and he smiles and then Conner and Travis barrel out the door and Luke pulls me aside.

“You know I’m getting a slight sense of Déjà vu,” Luke says, shaking with silent laughter.

“Yeah, you know so am I… It’s the weirdest thing, I could have sworn we’d done this before,” I say with a laugh which is not so silent. Conner and Travis walk back up the stairs towards us.

“Hey you two… Finally been joined at the hip?” Conner asks and I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, this way if he dies it’s easy for me to find him,” I say with another laugh.

“True…” Travis says and suddenly he looks uncertain. Luke noticed it too.

“Man, is something wrong?” he asks carefully.

“Awe, man, I’m sorry… the other kids… They don’t trust you… They…. Erm…” Travis struggled and for once, Connor didn’t seem ready to help him out.

“No, I get it, tell them not to worry, I’ll find somewhere to crash,” Luke says and I glance up at him to see the slight smile that was hiding the rage that they wouldn’t notice.

“Ok, again I’m real sorry, see you tomorrow,” Travis says and Connor mumbles something along the same lines and I wonder what they aren’t telling us, they walk back up the stairs, past us and into the cabin, the door slamming shut behind them.

“That’s just perfect! My own siblings don’t trust me,” Luke says, his voice hinting at anger and his hands balling into fists.

“Luke, you said it yourself, you did the wrong thing,” I say and instantly regret it as he glares at me “I’m not saying I agree with them, I’m just saying I understand where they’re coming from,”

“I know… I’m sorry… You should go to bed, I’ll find somewhere to crash and see you in the morning,” he says and I nod then an idea occurs to me.

“Well, it’s not like I have twenty brothers and sisters to share a cabin with…. It’s just me…. You could…” I suggest, glancing up at him and he smiles.

“And what would Chiron think of that?” he says, his voice laced with humour and all traces of anger were gone.

“Why do I care? He doesn’t like me anyways, and I think right now he’s less than fond of you,” I say and he shrugs.

“True,” he draws it out as he thinks it over. “What the hell, with my luck we’ll die on this quest anyways,” he says with a light laugh and I roll my eyes.

“Come on, it’s getting late and quite frankly, I’m cold,” I say and we start to walk side by side to my cabin. Pausing at the door, Luke sighs.

“You sure you’re alright with this?” he asks and I roll my eyes.

“Dude, we shared a cabin for over a year, many of those nights I spent in your bed because of my nightmares, I think I’ll be fine,” I say and he nods, pushing open the door and we walk inside as the lanterns lighting themselves and bathing the room in green light “Choose a bunk, I don’t mind which you take,” I tell him and walk towards my room with him sticking to my heels. I pull away and throw myself onto my bed rolling once in the air then landing with my back facing the wall so I can see the bunk on the opposite side of the room where Luke was flopping down, finally showing his exhaustion.

“I’ll have to get clothes tomorrow before we leave,” he was the image of perfection where he lay, with a foot hanging of the side of the bed, his hands folded on his stomach and his eyes closed.

“Remember what I said about me keeping most of your stuff because I couldn’t let go?” He opened one eye to look at me sideways.

“Yeah?”

“That doesn’t just include weapons and your extensive G.I Joe collection,” I joke as I get up from my bed and walk over to the trap door.

“Ha, ha, you’re real funny,” there was sarcasm dripping from his voice but I could tell that he was trying not to laugh.

“I know right,” I jump down into the dark and come out a moment later after I throw out a blue backpack. I closed the door and hand the bag to him. He sits up to rummage through it, after a moment, a smile spreads across his face. “What?” I sit beside him to see what he’s found. It was a homemade card. Made out of unevenly cut light blue cardboard, for a moment I almost didn’t even recognise it, even though the carefully written letters that spelled out ‘thanks for protecting me’ were written in my own, childish hand. It was the flick of the ‘G’ that reminded me that it was my handwriting. Luke opened it to reveal the photograph I’d stuck in it. It was of five kids, Luke, Annabeth, Grover, Cameron and me. Luke was in the middle, I was to his right, between him and Cameron and they both had their arms over my shoulders. Luke’s other arm was draped over Annabeth’s shoulders and she was grinning up at him as he’d just finished telling her a joke. She had her arm wrapped around Grover who was standing awkwardly but was grinning like the rest of us.

“You never properly smiled before then,” he said quietly and he looked at me with a smile that wrinkled the scar on his cheek and I couldn’t help but reach up to run my fingers along it.

“It was a good day,” was all I said in return.

“Yes it was,”

“Today wasn’t too bad either,” I say, it was then that I realised his nose was only an inch or two from mine. He chuckled under his breath.

“The last two days have been good,” he brushes a strand of hair from my cheek, I didn’t even need to think about it, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. Softly, gently, as if I could hurt him. I pulled away after a moment and he smiled. “What was that for?”

“Everything... That, and I felt like it,” I look down to hide my blush. He hooked a finger under my chin and lifts my face to look up at him. His eyes search mine and I don’t have time to think ‘holy hades’ before he’s kissing me again. His lips were still soft but they were also strong and sure on mine. When he pulled away, we were both grinning like idiots.

“I love you, Mavis,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine.

“I love you too,” I kiss him again gently


End file.
